Live Mode: Is it a must for live shows? Is song mode cheating? (Page 4 of 4)

No one here is a musician because none of us can play the guitar.

B4D-W0LF wrote:

I want to know is it possible that I can be considered chiptunes

Don't worry about what you are "considered," genre or performance wise.

A live show is about the experience, the feeling and the atmosphere. You could be the busiest person on stage and it still wouldn't matter if your production is weak or if the songs aren't good. It's common to feel like you'd have to keep yourself busy to make it "feel more like a performance," but I think this is a rookie mistake to be honest. People seeing you perform at live show is much different from people watching a video of you on youtube - for example, they aren't going to be staring at everything you're doing on the table. A youtube video gives a hundred people the same view of your rig, but in reality this would be limited to only the people closest to the stage at a live gig. Many people won't even be looking or even care what you're doing - they just want to hear and feel good music pumping out of a nice system and they want to see a person taking ownership of presenting that music to them. I think the sooner you begin to think about what's interesting for a person on the floor and not what's interesting for you on stage is when you really start to nail it down.

Put yourself in the shoes of someone else that night - would they want to observe your performance from a technical perspective or would they want to enjoy the general atmosphere? Obviously this changes from show to show, venue to venue, and city to city but I definitely think this is worth considering about way more than considering the validity.  Try everything and think of ways you can present the music each time - you'll love the trial and error and you will definitely find a way that works best for you!

tl;dr - you can perform in any way you want to. live performance is a presentation unique to each individual person and not a rigidly defined standard

chunter wrote:

This burns my ass somewhat. While a rapport with the audience is important, eg. "How are you doing tonight? Are you enjoying yourselves? Thanks for having me," if what the performer is doing matters more than the music itself, why are the audience there?

While a circus-act feeling can help keep people who aren't necessarily musicians interested, and sometimes stupendous technique is part of that, and others just need a smoke machine, some lighter fluid, and a zippo, what's the point if people don't enjoy your music at face value?

And of course, it always depends on the audience. Here in Brazil, I´m used to perform for audience who are more into experimental/weird music, so they have a good time looking at what you´re doing with your gear, or they´re just hypnotized by the visuals. On the other hand, I felt slightly uncomfortably performing at Blip Festival 2012. Kris Keyser had a blast of a gig, jumping around and smashing a DMG in the end. People went nuts. Then comes this weirdo fuck from Brazil and stands there like he´s playing a round of Tetris. In any case, I think the most important thing is that the one who should have more fun is the artist himself. It´s not a matter of ^fuck the audience^. But I do think it´s the most boring thing in the world to just press play and listen to the same music you´ve listened to a bunch of times.