EMUSIC-L Digest Volume 53, Issue 02 This issue's topics: Choir and Orchestra vs Tape or Sequencer (6 messages) Grenades, Anybody? (9 messages) Kraftwerk Unplugged (2 messages) Simulated accompaniment vs live musicians (5 messages) unplugged - why does it sound good Your EMUSIC-L Digest moderator is Joe McMahon . You may subscribe to EMUSIC-L by sending mail to listserv@american.edu with the line "SUB EMUSIC-L your name" as the text. The EMUSIC-L archive is a service of SunSite (sunsite.unc.edu) at the University of North Carolina. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Mon, 7 Jun 1993 09:46:17 EDT From: wbf@ALUXPO.ATT.COM Subject: Re: Choir and Orchestra vs Tape or Sequencer Andrew Clarke asks a choir/tape question: > Now is anybody out there actually performing this way (i.e. choral > group/electronic tape) ? There must be a number doing this with original Peter Uchytil responds: > In the latest _Keyboard there's a small article about one of the composers > for Star Trek the Next Generation who did exactly this. Ok, it's not Bach, > but he did say that he would need a 50 piece orchestra to cover the parts, > and he didn't have that kind of budget. Now I forget if he taped the > symphony or if he used samplers and synths, but he had a big backing section > (for simplicity's sake lets call it taped). Then he had 4 onstage musicians > playing (1) wind controller, (2) percussion/drumKAT, (3,4) keyboards. He > said that it worked really well and the auidence loved it. I read that and can't remember if they played with a tape or a sequencer. David Bloom also responds: > I recommend to any/all singing groups - stick to the acapella material. > Limits the range of music you can do, but the logisitcs more than make > up for it. Playing with a sequencer is logistically worse than playing with a tape. There's a LOT more to set up and therefore a LOT more that can go wrong. But my (ex) duo played quite well with a sequencer as a backup band. It can be done but be warned that coordination between live and prerecorded (tape or sequencer) can be problematic and technical difficulties will be a headache if you don't have a technician running things who is VERY good and familiar with this type of situation. Bill Fox ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 Jun 1993 07:32:19 +0000 From: Nick Rothwell Subject: Re: Choir and Orchestra vs Tape or Sequencer > Playing with a sequencer is logistically worse than playing with >a tape. There's a LOT more to set up and therefore a LOT more that can >go wrong. True; and a specific issue here is that the sequencer will probably need access to the same destination devices as you do while playing, so you'd need to think long and hard about MIDI routing unless you keep it simple. (I've been thinking long and hard about live MIDI routing for three years. I think I now have it figured out...) One obvious thing: if you use a sequencer you can (for example) get a separate metronome "track" and things like this. Tape is stereo (unless you use a multitrack deck of course) so you can't piggyback any extra signals. Nick Rothwell | cassiel@cassiel.demon.co.uk CASSIEL Contemporary Music/Dance | cassiel@cix.compulink.co.uk ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 Jun 1993 08:55:31 EDT From: wbf@ALUXPO.ATT.COM Subject: Re: Choir and Orchestra vs Tape or Sequencer I said: > Playing with a sequencer is logistically worse than playing with >a tape. There's a LOT more to set up and therefore a LOT more that can >go wrong. Nick Rothwell said: > True; and a specific issue here is that the sequencer will probably need > access to the same destination devices as you do while playing, so you'd > need to think long and hard about MIDI routing unless you keep it simple. > (I've been thinking long and hard about live MIDI routing for three years. > I think I now have it figured out...) Without a doubt, Nick, your live show's level of complexity is greater than mine in that you're a keys player (I assume). As you asserted above, I kept it "simple" and only had my guitar as a MIDI controller on a small number of songs. With a live rig of a sampler, a piano, an FM synth, and an L/A synth (all are rack units) plus two outboard drum machines, I had plenty of voices to divide up between the sequencer and my guitar. I didn't stack too many patches either. And it all was routed through an MX-8 doing minimal processing. By contrast, don't you have one computer running a sequencer and another computer running MAX? Between your live keys and MAX, I can imagine a LOT of MIDI being generated live. Whew! Bill Fox ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Jun 1993 12:51:30 EDT From: wbf@ALOFT.ATT.COM Subject: Re: Choir and Orchestra vs Tape or Sequencer Nick Rothwell said: > (I've been thinking long and hard about live MIDI routing for three years. > I think I now have it figured out...) Please fill us in on your results and conclusions on the matter. -- Bill Fox * Fox's Den Recording Studio * Nazareth, PA * wbf@alux1.att.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Heisenberg may have slept here... or here... or here... or here... or here... or here... ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 14 Jun 1993 07:32:25 +0000 From: Nick Rothwell Subject: Re: Choir and Orchestra vs Tape or Sequencer > Please fill us in on your results and conclusions on the >matter. That would fill a book. Briefly: two keyboards, two racks, two MIDI Time Pieces, two PowerBooks, both running OMS and routing both keyboards (and each other) to the entire rig. There are another couple of MIDI patchers in there as well somewhere (MX-8, MRC). I'm now using the sequencer (Performer) purely as a simple-minded recorder/event editor. Played material goes from here through to the other PowerBook and into MAX, where all the routing, processing, etc. is done. The MAX system includes a chunk manager (similar to Performer's visual layout of song chunks) locked to beat sync and firing MAX subsystems according to bar and beat. All the loops, rhythm and so on are MAX processes running either with autonomous timers or clocked from slave chunks being passed sanitised external sync from something which parses MIDI SPP and beat clock. Live use will probably be similar, next time I use this on stage. Unlike a normal sequencer, chunks can be moved around dynamically, and so entire subsystems can be cued and brought online under live control. The last live performance had Performer running for about half of it, and MAX systems running loops and things for the other half. Hopefully, next time I get onto a stage, I'll be able to leave Performer behind and run MAX on both machines. Nick Rothwell | cassiel@cassiel.demon.co.uk CASSIEL Contemporary Music/Dance | cassiel@cix.compulink.co.uk ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 14 Jun 1993 08:47:28 -0700 From: "Meet ya half way 'cross the sky . . ." Subject: Re: Choir and Orchestra vs Tape or Sequencer Rothwell: You're a maniac . . . keep it up! Although I've never used MAX, I've read a bit and I sure wish I could get something like it for the Amiga. What fun you must have! -jk ___ __ ___ | | JKrikawa@CCIT.Arizona.Edu | | \______/ \__________ Tucson, AZ __________/ \____/\../\/\.___/\___ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 15 Jun 1993 17:38:04 -0800 From: Mike Friesen Subject: Grenades, Anybody? Should the "unplugged" phenomenon (pop performers doing live, "not extremely processed and reasonably acoustic" music) be telling US (as Emusicians) anything? What's the point? Why is it popular? Can we learn anything from it? Michael Friesen North Peace Secondary School Fort St. John, British Columbia, Canada It is a tale told by an idiot; full of sound and fury... ******************************************************** ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 16 Jun 1993 08:31:03 CDT From: "Kevan L. Moore" Subject: Re: Grenades, Anybody? /Should the "unplugged" phenomenon (pop performers doing live, "not /extremely processed and reasonably acoustic" music) be telling US (as /Emusicians) anything? What's the point? Why is it popular? Can we learn /anything from it? may i suggest that the reason it is so popular is that the people who perform already have their studio music in the minds of the listeners. when i hear an acoustic version of 'layla' my mind fills in the background with the music i remember accompanying it on the old record, much the way an artist can make a charicature of someone with just a few strokes of a pen, and the resulting lines are identifiable as the subject. another reason (rap excluded) is that vocal harmonies are more important and therefore more obvious. really hearing vocal harmonies for the first time (instead of buried deep in the mix) changes the sound of the song. vocal harmonies are quite intriguing when done right, and when you haven't heard them in a while, their simplicity is new and interesting again, much like 'trying corn flakes again for the first time'. imho klm ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 16 Jun 1993 10:27:00 EST From: john mcintyre Subject: Re: Grenades, Anybody? >From: Mike Friesen >Should the "unplugged" phenomenon (pop performers doing live, "not >extremely processed and reasonably acoustic" music) be telling US (as >Emusicians) anything? What's the point? Why is it popular? Can we learn >anything from it? Since emulation is impossible, a logical response to minimalism is maximalism: extremely processed, extremely electronic. Adopt the motto: Plugged and Proud. 8-) John McIntyre Physics - Astronomy Domine Dept Michigan State University ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 16 Jun 1993 19:45:28 +0200 From: Kalev Tiits Subject: Re: Grenades, Anybody? >Should the "unplugged" phenomenon (pop performers doing live, "not >extremely processed and reasonably acoustic" music) be telling US (as >Emusicians) anything? What's the point? Why is it popular? Can we learn >anything from it? I think so. for a while i have been more interested in computer-assisted live performance with a minimal amount of technology designed for real-time response, than working my butt off with the small fine-grain details in the land of, for instance, cmusic and "engineering approach" to music. the stuff i play often is improvised rather than very well preplanned and i am having great fun with it. (i do hope my audience is too, i am not sure if popularity has a lot to do with this though). my music makes use of "ready-made" objects for percussion to get new sounds with some additional amplification and processing, one or two performers and a small interactive MIDI setup. really, there is much experimentation in the world of synthesis you can do with just a simple, inexpensive set of instruments too. it is really up to your spirit, not the performance of your technology. i do not want to talk down the users of state-of-the-art gear. if you feel like using it, then that is the way for you. i just think Mike brought up a point which deserves some thought. Kalev Tiits University of Helsinki, Finland e-mail kalev@elisir.helsinki.fi ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 16 Jun 1993 16:10:15 EDT From: Bill Fox Subject: Re: Grenades, Anybody? Alan Edwards: > In message <9306160036.AA15918@unb.ca> Mike Friesen writes: > > Should the "unplugged" phenomenon (pop performers doing live, "not > > extremely processed and reasonably acoustic" music) be telling US (as > > Emusicians) anything? What's the point? Why is it popular? Can we learn > > anything from it? > > > I am still waiting for the Kraftwerk Unplugged album ... Alan, Just put a label over your "Greatest Hits of Marcel Marceaux" CD with the new title "Kraftwerk Unplugged" and you've got your wish! -- Bill Fox * Fox's Den Recording Studio * Nazareth, PA * wbf@aloft.att.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Copyright 1993, William B. Fox Any unauthorized use of the contents of this mail message, in whole or in part, may be a violation of applicible laws, subject to prosecution, or persecution at the very least! 8:0 :^) |-\ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 16 Jun 1993 16:14:32 ADT From: Alan Edwards Subject: Re: Grenades, Anybody? In message <9306160036.AA15918@unb.ca> Mike Friesen writes: > Should the "unplugged" phenomenon (pop performers doing live, "not > extremely processed and reasonably acoustic" music) be telling US (as > Emusicians) anything? What's the point? Why is it popular? Can we learn > anything from it? > I am still waiting for the Kraftwerk Unplugged album ... alan ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 17 Jun 1993 01:35:30 GMT From: Steven Collins Subject: Re: Grenades, Anybody? In article <9306161914.AA27423@jupiter.sun.csd.unb.ca> aedwards@JUPITER.SUN.CSD.UNB.CA (Alan Edwards) writes: >In message <9306160036.AA15918@unb.ca> Mike Friesen writes: >> Should the "unplugged" phenomenon (pop performers doing live, "not >> extremely processed and reasonably acoustic" music) be telling US (as >> Emusicians) anything? What's the point? Why is it popular? Can we learn >> anything from it? >> >I am still waiting for the Kraftwerk Unplugged album ... > Yeah. Bet they call it "Zen and the sound of One Hand Clapping", or perhaps "Ode To Cage, and the Sound of Silence". Steve -- +-------------------------------------+---------------------------------------- + | Steven Collins, Visiting Researcher | email: steve@crl.hitachi.co.jp | | Hitachi Central Research Lab. Tokyo | ph: (0423)-23-1111 fax: (0423) 27-7742 | +-------------------------------------+---------------------------------------- + ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 17 Jun 1993 13:10:25 EDT From: The Radio Gnome Subject: Re: Grenades, Anybody? Hi, IMHO this 'unplugged' thing is just another fad. The media moguls have found a way to repackage older material (other than box sets) and wring still more money out of it. If there was a way to make money off of Kraftwerk unplugged, then they would find a way to do it. As a matter of fact, the Balinescu String Quartet covered 'Autobahn' and it actually sounds quite good! Andy Wing ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 17 Jun 1993 13:59:51 -0400 From: idealord Subject: Re: Grenades, Anybody? > > Hi, > > IMHO this 'unplugged' thing is just another fad. The media moguls > have found a way to repackage older material (other than box sets) and > wring still more money out of it. If there was a way to make money off of > Kraftwerk unplugged, then they would find a way to do it. IM humblest of Opinions ;-) this is nonsense. Media moguls don't force feed consumers - all they do is respond to market changes - not that I give a shit about any music which is conceived in a commercial context - yawn... I've got friends in the biz and they'll tell you it's a crapshoot. I feel there may be an actual movement in the public musical mind against emusic. I've experienced this phenomenon on several levels - call it fashion, whatever - it's part of the so-called "authentic" need for so-called "authentic" things. It's probably a reaction against slick packaging, ultimately. Contrivance... > As a matter of fact, the Balinescu String Quartet covered 'Autobahn' > and it actually sounds quite good! > > Andy Wing > That's because _anything_ with motoric rhythms sounds good played by a string quartet (for a while... yawn...) even that KKKraftwerk stuff... emusic classic blahhh!!!! Jeff Harrington idealord@dorsai.dorsai.org ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 17 Jun 1993 11:30:14 +0200 From: "Michael D. Lyons" Subject: Re: Kraftwerk Unplugged > > I am still waiting for the Kraftwerk Unplugged album ... > > Just put a label over your "Greatest Hits of Marcel > Marceaux" CD with the new title "Kraftwerk Unplugged" and you've got > your wish! Uh, Marcel Marceau *sings* in *German*?? Mike Ich bin der Musikant mit Taschenrechner in der Hand. -- ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 17 Jun 1993 10:52:14 EDT From: Bill Fox Subject: Re: Kraftwerk Unplugged > > > I am still waiting for the Kraftwerk Unplugged album ... > > > > Just put a label over your "Greatest Hits of Marcel > > Marceaux" CD with the new title "Kraftwerk Unplugged" and you've got > > your wish! > > Uh, Marcel Marceau *sings* in *German*?? > > Mike Marcel Marceau is a world renowned mime. Unplugging Kraftwerk would make them sound the same. Ich leibe musik. -- Bill Fox * Fox's Den Recording Studio * Nazareth, PA * wbf@aloft.att.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------ "What I believe is not important." - David C. Bloom "Consensus Determines Reality" - David C. Bloom "[stick _that_ in your sig file, Bill Fox :->]" - David C. Bloom :^) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 Jun 1993 01:21:40 GMT From: Andrew Clarke Subject: Simulated accompaniment vs live musicians I have recently been involved with a small choir which has almost bankrupted itself by ... giving concerts. Now the cost of the hall was bearable: the real killer was the cost of the orchestra. Even with a baroque orchestra of around 20 players, the additional cost (we paid union rates) meant that we had to sell 700+ tickets to break even. Which we didn't. Discussing this problem with a local expert on electronic music, I discovered that for the cost of the orchestra we could probably have paid for a tape of the orchestral accompaniment recreated electronically, which would have become our property and which we could reuse ad lib. No union rates, no overtime, no royalties payable if broadcast. OK, the oboe part wouldn't sound exactly like an oboe, but we could have asked the e-musician for a similarly reedy sound that would have been a new but appropriate sound. Similarly, we wouldn't have had to put up with the horrible sub-Mantovani reverberating strings so many people unjustly associate with synthesization. Problems of communication between tape/conductor/choir were solvable. Unfortunately, the choir didn't have the capital to go ahead: we also had more than our fair share of Luddites who did the wink-wink nudge-nudge stuff when anybody mentioned computer simulation. Now is anybody out there actually performing this way (i.e. choral group/electronic tape) ? There must be a number doing this with original music, and if anyone has the time I'd be interested to hear from you (NB I'm not a technician). But is anyone doing this with Bach or Haydn etc, etc. BTW, I'm not against paying musicians a fair price for their work: they deserve every cent, most of 'em. But for amateur organisations working without fairly massive sponsorship/government subsidy, a live orchestra is rapidly becoming a complete impossibility IMHO Regards, Andrew Clarke (ajc@libserver.canberra.edu.au) Usual disclaimer ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 Jun 1993 06:58:30 PDT From: Peter Uchytil Subject: Re: Simulated accompaniment vs live musicians > > I have recently been involved with a small choir which has almost > bankrupted itself by ... giving concerts. Now the cost of the hall was > bearable: the real killer was the cost of the orchestra. Even with a > baroque orchestra of around 20 players, the additional cost (we paid union > rates) meant that we had to sell 700+ tickets to break even. Which we didn't. > [ explanation of using backing tapes/sequences deleted ] > > Now is anybody out there actually performing this way (i.e. choral > group/electronic tape) ? There must be a number doing this with original > music, and if anyone has the time I'd be interested to hear from you (NB > I'm not a technician). But is anyone doing this with Bach or Haydn etc, etc. > In the latest _Keyboard there's a small article about one of the composers for Star Trek the Next Generation who did exactly this. Ok, it's not Bach, but he did say that he would need a 50 piece orchestra to cover the parts, and he didn't have that kind of budget. Now I forget if he taped the symphony or if he used samplers and synths, but he had a big backing section (for simplicity's sake lets call it taped). Then he had 4 onstage musicians playing (1) wind controller, (2) percussion/drumKAT, (3,4) keyboards. He said that it worked really well and the auidence loved it. > Regards, > > Andrew Clarke (ajc@libserver.canberra.edu.au) BTW, Y'know this would be the perfect alias for a joint account by the musicians Andy Bell and Vince Clarke who make up Erasure ;-) Sorry, Andrew, I'm not awake yet... Pete -- Peter Uchytil <> ADC Kentrox -- Portland,OR <> peter@kentrox.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Come away with me and you will find/The life you thought you left behind" ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 Jun 1993 10:08:36 -0400 From: idealord Subject: Re: Simulated accompaniment vs live musicians When I was at the Atlantic Center for the Arts last January, working under Mark Coniglio and Mort Subotnick, we worked with their Macintosh language - Interactor - to do live accompaniments triggered by MIDI signals. The Interactor system is phenomenal easy to program when it comes to setting up a system which can respond to events and trigger more events. Mort played a Debussy Prelude on a MIDI keyboard which actually waited for user input - without having the entire score in memory! Other composers in residence there used a microphone pitch tracking (forgot the make - it's pretty common) to trigger synthesizer events - in fact Mort's two latest piece make use of Interactor to trigger computer video and lighting effects. This might be just what the choral director needs. Unfortunately it's been my experience that pitch trackers work better in a solo vocal enviroment - or at least a pitch tracker on a soloist would probably operate more effectively. With a MIDI controlled tape deck (?) or a good orchestral synth (?) you could probably simulate more musically an orchestral accompaniment. Tape accompaniments have serious problems when it comes to timing (I have never found them to work at all, actually!) and MIDI interactive devices have come way down in price... It's trivial to program - I whipped up something to respond to mouse movements to make synth cascades in minutes - all programming is done with icons... Interactor is available from Dr. T's Software and was created by Mark Coniglio and Mort Subotnick. Jeff Harrington idealord@dorsai.dorsai.org ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 Jun 1993 11:39:47 -0500 From: "David C. Bloom" Subject: Re: Simulated accompaniment vs live musicians Andrew__ This is a touchy topic. Be prepared. You may have just started a flamewar. So let me get in my IMHO before it gets too furious: I also sing in a struggling group - a community male chorus. We do a lot of acapella stuff, a few piano-acompanied numbers and a couple big organ pieces [no pun intended]. We had a few gigs with local orchestras [whose quality and professionalism were somewhat wanting], but had a hard time coordinating publishers, key signatures, etc. For example, Wagner's "Pilgrim's Chorus", G&S "The Gondoliers", R&H "Nothin' Like a Dame" - we keep these war-horses in the repertoire for just such occasions. Performing with tape [Karaoke] is like ritual disembowelment [Hari-Kari]. I recently saw the Guys 'N Dolls broadway road show, and their pit band consisted of eight musicians - four synthesizers and a rhythm section. It was all sampled - down to the wailing horn lines - and all top quality. Eight musicians played - there were no sequencer lines [not even the set-change vamps]. Most of the audience couldn't tell it was Memorex. I recommend to any/all singing groups - stick to the acapella material. Limits the range of music you can do, but the logisitcs more than make up for it. A local university choir that's touring Europe this summer is sticking to acapella - to satisfy various local union accompanist requirements. Seems the EC can agree oonly agree on so much. __David <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> <> david c. bloom <> <> <> open networks engineering, inc. <> "The first false assumption <> <> 777 e. eisenhower pkwy, ste 650 <> that underlies the scheduling <> <> ann arbor, michigan 48108 <> of systems programming <> <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> is that all will go well." <> <> net dcb@one.com <> \ \ <> __Frederick P. Brooks Jr. <> <> vox 313.996.9900 <> 0-0 <> The Mythical Man-Month <> <> fax 313.996.9908 <> . <> <> <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 4 Jun 1993 14:02:47 EDT From: Mark Simon Subject: Re: Simulated accompaniment vs live musicians As a musician accustomed to doing a certain number of cantata/oratorio gigs each year with local choirs, I am of course aghast that any choir should try to put me out of work, on the other hand, the practice of many financially less-than-well-endowed choral organizations of substituting organ accompaniments is an old and well established one. Synthesized accompinament is just a new twist on this. Before you go ahead with this you should consider that if among the members of your own group there are "Luddites who do the wink-wink nudge- nudge stuff" at the suggestion of using electronics, there are certain to be even more of such people among your potential audience. Classical audiences are prejudiced in favor of orchestras, especially these days when "authentic performance practice" is the rage. Drawing a crowd for a concert with synthesized accompaniment is probably going to be as hard a sell as it would be for one with the traditional organ accompaniment, so unless your sounds are really really superb, you're probably better off sticking with the organ. Maybe your publicity could play up the "switched on" aspect of your performance; still, your sounds had better be really good. Prefer using 2 or 3 live keyboard players to using a sequencer. Audiences like to see people on stage doing things. Substituting synths for orchestras works better with theatrical productions, which have a built-in visual element to absorb the audience's attention. Orchestras are generally tucked away in the pit in these productions, anyway, and no one notices them except when the strings get howlingly out-of-tune, which is unfortunately quite common in amateur Mikados or South Pacifics. I recently put on a performance of my own songs which relied rather heavily on sequenced accompaniment. Some of the songs were more of a cabaret nature and I was able to have the singers do some sort of appropriate movements while they sang, which provided a visual element. For other songs, those of a more "serious" nature, I had an ensemble of 8 players, including the MIDI keyboard. The keyboard caused a bit of embarrasment at the first performance because I was only able to recruit a pianist for the part, and she wasn't accustomed to the peculiarities of electronic instruments, such as middle c's that migrate over the keyboard from patch to patch, split keyboard, etc. I had all the patches set up so that all she had to do was sit down and play, but she got nervous and forgot to push the right buttons. (so, next piece of advice: be sure your player is used to working with synths). One of the 8 players was a "Computermeister" who sat at the Mac and ran sequenced chunks on cues from the conductor. So this was a hybrid orchestra, live players playing along side with a sequencer. Classical musicians still find this something of a novelty. At the second performance, the keyboardist did everything right and all went well. Let's see, I was about to make some kind of point with all this, but I've forgotten what. Maybe it's time to sign off. --Mark Simon tip@cornellc.cit.cornell.edu ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 16 Jun 1993 08:37:32 CDT From: "Kevan L. Moore" Subject: unplugged - why does it sound good /Should the "unplugged" phenomenon (pop performers doing live, "not /extremely processed and reasonably acoustic" music) be telling US (as /Emusicians) anything? What's the point? Why is it popular? Can we learn /anything from it? emusic is what made the song popular in the first place. may i suggest that the reason it is so popular is that the people who perform already have their studio music in the minds of the listeners. when i hear an acoustic version of 'layla' my mind fills in the background with the music i remember accompanying it on the old record, much the way an artist can make a charicature of someone with just a few strokes of a pen, and the resulting lines are identifiable as the subject. for example, if i were to simply quote from Comfortably Numb, Floyd: " ..... Just the basic facts . . . .can you show me where it hurts .." how many of you heard the melody in your mind, along with all the background music? another reason is that vocal harmonies are more important and therefore more obvious. really hearing vocal harmonies for the first time (instead of buried deep in the mix) changes the sound of the song. vocal harmonies are quite intriguing when done right, and when you haven't heard them in a while, their simplicity is new and interesting again, much like 'trying corn flakes again for the first time'. imho klm ------------------------------ End of the EMUSIC-L Digest ******************************