[Dancecult-l] liveness

[Michael MacDonald]

Again, let me warn the list that I am only beginning to explore EDM directly and fairly ignorant of the literature however;

Since the conversation has moved away from the potential increase in 'live' performance (ie instruments that Sachs-Hornbostel could deal with) to the philosophical contemplation of 'liveness' I have to wonder if this question is productive. 

While I was on the road with bands I noticed that I felt entirely mediated by the 3000 watt monitor system and the whatever thousand watt house system. It got so bad that when I wasn't on the road I craved non-electronically mediated music...what has been called traditional, roots, or folk music. However, after a while I came to an interesting realization. I was starting to spend a great deal more time looking for the 'right' instrument. The one with the purest tone, that special sound. The one that amplified my musicality in a way that I resonated. I had become, far from the electricity of my road gig, a cyborg. The relationship between human and machine in the music making process had become paramount. 

Since I replaced the road with research I haven't become any less integrated with machinery. Liveness for me, and I suppose Deleuze, is about the generation of meaning. Is it necessary, or even possible, to debate the particularities of liveness? Or are we attempting to get at what makes a performance meaningful and to whom...but getting distracted by a definition of machinery (the electric guitar is no less a machine than the laptop and no more musical).  After all even Roland Barthes described the punctum he experienced with a photograph. Un-arguably non-live yet meaningful enough to bring you to your feet.

thoughts?

m.
 
Michael MacDonald 
University of Alberta
Music Department
Ethnomusicology
PhD student


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