silence, playing silently, or rather playing with lots of space between sounds, is probably the easiest way to ensure audience participation. every noise the audience makes becomes part of the piece; however voluntary or involuntary that noise may be on their part.
the last gart&seekatze performance (with visuals by stijn pardon) at the oude stadsfeestzaal in mechelen, wasn't that silent. i came prepared for a large hall and a large crowd that didn't really know what they were going to get, and i wanted to ensure that stijn's film would get a soundtrack that was worth his effort. so, i brought two amps, the full analog-digital effects rack and two field recordings -one of trains i made earlier that week and one i made just prior to the gig in the streets of mechelen- and two guitars. laurent and sara (of veglia records and r.o.t. fame) had gotten a p.a.-system; so volume wasn't a problem.
as the film was a loop, i didn't really have to mind any duration or pace, which is always a good thing. that way sound will sometimes coincide or contrast with the image and in that way augment or warp the impact of either image or sound.
the crowd was larger than usual and pretty much into their own thing during the performance. at no point did their chatter stop, but that's really what i like. on the recording the audience noise echoing through the hall blends with the other prepared or played sounds, and lifts the recording above a mere registration of a live performance.
sadly the recording volume was too high so the loud sounds of the trains coming through the amp and p.a. got distorted onto the mini-disc and i had to doctor the recording with some filter shenanigans to make listenable to uninvolved ears. still i managed somehow to keep the weakest sound-source of the performance audible, an e-bow on an unamplified acoustic guitar.
at the moment the recording is only available as a no release by incidentalrecordings on a cdr that contains two mixes of the live material and two tracks made from the material i recorded for the performance.
the last gart&seekatze performance (with visuals by stijn pardon) at the oude stadsfeestzaal in mechelen, wasn't that silent. i came prepared for a large hall and a large crowd that didn't really know what they were going to get, and i wanted to ensure that stijn's film would get a soundtrack that was worth his effort. so, i brought two amps, the full analog-digital effects rack and two field recordings -one of trains i made earlier that week and one i made just prior to the gig in the streets of mechelen- and two guitars. laurent and sara (of veglia records and r.o.t. fame) had gotten a p.a.-system; so volume wasn't a problem.
as the film was a loop, i didn't really have to mind any duration or pace, which is always a good thing. that way sound will sometimes coincide or contrast with the image and in that way augment or warp the impact of either image or sound.
the crowd was larger than usual and pretty much into their own thing during the performance. at no point did their chatter stop, but that's really what i like. on the recording the audience noise echoing through the hall blends with the other prepared or played sounds, and lifts the recording above a mere registration of a live performance.
sadly the recording volume was too high so the loud sounds of the trains coming through the amp and p.a. got distorted onto the mini-disc and i had to doctor the recording with some filter shenanigans to make listenable to uninvolved ears. still i managed somehow to keep the weakest sound-source of the performance audible, an e-bow on an unamplified acoustic guitar.
at the moment the recording is only available as a no release by incidentalrecordings on a cdr that contains two mixes of the live material and two tracks made from the material i recorded for the performance.
(the performance on the 17th of march 2007 was part of an international architectural workshop about the dossin building in mechelen)
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