The Big Wheel Keeps On Turning

Despite the lack of recent exposition on the blog, things actually are happening with Nonagon out there in the real world! (And FYI, no: I haven't turned into that guy that refers to himself in the third person by the name of his band. I mean that things have been happening for me musically. Non-music stuff has also been happening to me in the real world, but I'll save that for the tabloids).

I've been spending a portion of my music time recently going through old tracks and starting to prep them for live performance. Figuring out how to do this was something that was long overdue for me, so I'm glad to have finally bitten the bullet and gotten started. So far I've discovered that, as far as creating a compelling live performance, I'd be much more effective if there were two or more of me. Perhaps this is one of the reasons people form "bands." While I might be able to handle all of the instrumentation and production alone thanks to my friend the computer, when it comes to interpreting what I've created in a live context, things get a lot more complicated. For this first foray, I've decided to just do what I can: for each song, I'm choosing a few melodic parts that I think could be played live on keyboards, keeping them around as AU instruments with midi data, and then rendering the rest to a limited number of audio tracks (e.g. beats, bass, pads, etc) that I slice up into sections and arrange in Live's Session View. I'm also experimenting with setting aside a few chopped drum breaks for live rhythmic improvisation (monome, I yearn for you!). The idea is that I can choose at any moment to control either the flow and structure of the song on a macro level by manipulating the audio and midi clips, or I can control a single instrument by taking over from the pre-recorded midi clips and literally playing it live.

This all sounds great in theory, but how well it's going to work in practice- particularly under performance pressure- has yet to be seen. I'm trying to make the setup as foolproof as I can, but I have a sneaking suspicion that there are a lot of lessons out there that are going to have to be learned the hard way. Then again, if things go to shit I can always say I was just playing jazz! (No offense to jazz.)

On the familiar composition front, I'm working on a kind of unique idea that I think I'll be ready to reveal soon. Sorry for the vagueness- you'll see what I'm talking about before too long.

That's all I have the energy to write for now, but big things are looming on the horizon! Actually they're probably small things, but when it's as flat as it is here in Nonagonia, 'lil things sometimes look real big. Until then...