Quote:

A forum is a difficult place to try to put nuance into a casual and fast post. I was in no way putting down anyone, I was mainly agreeing with Rachael who is a good player. From the point of view of a good player like both of us are, less is better because we're both good enough to handle it. Others are not and that's fine, no snobbery here.<...snip...>


I have to be a bit defensive about that. I'm a good player. I sat first chair in the all-state band every year that I was in school, my biography is in "Who's Who In Entertainment", "Who's Who in America" and others, I've performed as a warm up or back up act to many major headliners (some at the peak of their careers), I've performed on MTV, ABC, CBS, NBC, and The BBC, and just about everywhere a musician can play from my home in the US to The People's Republic of China. From the point of view of this good player, less can be more or more can be more. Life is about virtually unlimited possibilities, not self-imposed restrictions.

I'm good enough to handle it, but I choose to go with more. I've heard great and terrible acts both with and without backing tracks. The tracks have nothing to do with it, and the skill of the musician has nothing to do with whether or not he/she chooses to use backing tracks.

I choose backing tracks because (1) they allow me to play gigs that I wouldn't be able to play without them (2) they allow me to switch instruments on stage so I can play sax, wind synth, flute, guitar, and vocals depending on the song (3) they allow me to play a wider variety of music ranging from mellow ballads to high energy rock, salsa, or whatever and that allows me to put on many different musical 'hats' and express different parts of myself (4) I like them (5) the audience likes them.

Not that there is anything wrong with a single guitarist or pianist with or without vocals. It's just not the kind of gig I want to play at this point in my life.

There is more than one right way to make music.

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On DJ music:

While I agree that DJs are big competition for live music (or semi-live), they aren't the biggest problem.

The biggest problem is TV.

In my parent's generation and when I was young, TV was black and white with narrow audio bandwidth and a tinny 3" speaker. You couldn't get good entertainment at home, so you had to go out for it.

Now we have HDTV with 7.1 surround sound so you can get good entertainment at home plus with a cable TV bill that can climb to a couple of hundred dollars per month, there goes the entertainment budget.

TV is the real competition. It's the reason why so many fewer people go out to hear live music, karaoke, or DJs.

And TV isn't live entertainment at all. In fact, it isn't really entertainment - it's a sales medium pretending to be an entertainment medium.

Don't get me started on that -- oops! I got myself started

So although Leilani and I play guitars, synths, sax, flute, and vocals over our backing tracks, and although I was definitely alive when I made each of our over 500 backing tracks, I still don't know if I consider my act a live performance, a semi-live performance or a computer-enhanced live performance, and I guess I never will.

And although this thread has gotten me to ponder about it, I guess it doesn't really matter. Leilani and I have been making our living doing this since 1985 and although I do remember the days when I was in large bands with all the associated pleasures of that, I also remember the personnel problems and at this point in my life, I prefer playing in the duo with my wife.

The reason why we are a duo is associated with this thread. We were in a 5 piece "100% live" band. Lost the bass player due to family illness (read: out of work for a month with no income) and shortly after, lost a drummer due to personal reasons (read: out of work for another month) and when we finally started gigging with the drummer, we started having problems with the new drummer's religion interfering with where/when we can gig (didn't tell us that up front). So I bough a primitive sequencer and later Band-in-a-Box and we haven't looked back.

We are very lively, the music was all played live, but the backing tracks were pre-recorded using parts played by live musicians. I have the skills to do a solo act if I want to, but I choose to do a duo/track gig. Is it live or semi-live? I can't answer that.

YMMV - I repeat, there is more than one right way to make music.

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