Daedelus and his Monome

Yesterday I saw Daedelus perform on the Monome at de Verdieping. It gave rise to the question: What is the perfect performance instrument for electronic musicians? Does such an instrument exist at all? What does the audience want to see?

First of all, any device is better than a performer sitting behind his laptop with a mouse an nothing else. We all know he’s not checking his email but the fact that he could be is enough to conclude this is not a very pleasing way of addressing an audience, right?

Pierre Bastien was also performing last night, and all the sounds he makes are generated by physical instruments and some interesting homemade machines. He emphasizes this visual aspect by having the image of a few small cameras beamed on a big screen. We all see where the sounds are coming from, it is the strangeness of the instruments that keeps the rather repetitive soundscape interesting.

Pierre Bastiens’ way of performing is quite rare though. As sounds are generated and processed inside a computer what do you as member of the audience want to see? Personally I’d like to be able to see and understand as much as possible. But maybe it’s good enough to realize the performer has total hands-on control on what’s happening, and is able to change things on the fly as much as he likes, in stead of playing music dj-style.

Daedelus showed how he was using the Monome to control the start and duration of sounds at different speeds, as well as the effects processing the sound. His software kept everything in sync at all times, so even when people from the audience were invited to try out the Monome it still sounded fine, so it proved to be a fail proof setup.

He didn’t touch his computer once during the performance, and the blinking buttons of the Monome make it a nice thing to watch. What I miss is a bit more expression. It’s just ‘on’ and ‘off’ and playing back loops. The way the Monome is laid out I guess is forcing you to work with your music in a grid-like manner.

A completely customizable controller which could be used in a similar way is the Lemur by Jazzmutant. It’s multi-touch touchscreen allows you to control modulations in a much more complex way. A downside of this is, of course, that it’s very difficult for the audience to decipher what’s happening.

If you haven’t seen him play live before: this video gives you an idea about Daedelus’ Monome-based setup:

Photo by: monome.org

Comments

[brothernigel]

have you heard of edison? he is a little more involved with his monome performances. http://www.vimeo.com/2655887

[admin]

I haven't heard of Edison, thanks brothernigel!
Ok so he's triggering a single sound with each button. Definitely some fast fingerwork.