On the 28th of May I played my first long public solo set at an algorave. It was part of the Elevate series of events promoted by my friend Sam Schorb of Sheffield Pattern Club. It was a really great experience!
I feel very lucky to have fallen in with the crowd in Sheffield that I have. They are lovely, wonderfully clever, kind people and I feel really happy I get to count them amongst my friends. Despite not feeling a "proper" creative (I will forever be a physicist technician) I never feel out of place. Truly, imposters welcome!
Anyway, the set was at a bar called Factory Floor which was really cool and I have inside information it is fast becoming a gay bar ;). They were doing the fancy mixology thing by dripping vodka through fruit and glassware. Most importantly for me, however, they had Am-A-Zing home-made soft drinks. I had a fuchsia and lemon lemonade which was beautiful and also a ginger something-or-other which was almost as good. Top tier, would go again just for the drinks.
The other artists playing that night were:
- Damu
- Nik Nenov (who also VJed)
- Heavy Lifting
- DJ Bextra
We got a decent crowd (probably helped by free entry!) and it was nice to meet various people from around Sheffield, including several Sheffield Hackspace members (but not Alifee, boo hoo... will have to wait until EMF). I should have tried harder to convinve some Notts folks to come up.
I played a 30 minute set. Because I had been dealing with Deadlines and Misc. Stress I had not practiced as much as I would like, but I played the whole train journey up and I was feeling fairly okay. I knew it wasn't going to be 30 minutes of silence, and I felt as though what was coming out was through artistic intent rather than flailing (there was a small amount of flailing).
I'd played a 9-minute from-scratch set a few weeks prior, so I had an idea of the sort of sounds I liked. I've been playing a lot of samba-fusion with Nottingham Protest Drumming Alliance, so the clave rhythm is stuck in my head. I also know a few samples I just like the sound of, (organs, birds and pebbles), and that I love arpeggios. That pretty much informed the set.
What I liked:
- Felt like me
- Amazing seeing strangers gather round to listen and dance to my music
- Hearing it on the venue sound system, which was mega
- The silly bit I did in the middle pretending the crow from the samples was in the room
- Lucy gave me a tip at my first ever live-coding gig to always be a diva about getting a riser for your laptop... so I asked the bartender for a bottle crate!
What I did not like:
- Transitions between sections were way too fast/jump. Slow down!
- Worrying way too much about the mix
- It all kinda sounds the same? More variety!
The worrying about the mix is interesting. I spent loads of time putting a sound in, and then sticking a lpf, hpf, or djf on it, and tweaking it until it "sounds good" which is, I guess, anti-energy and pro-quality but also I think it makes it easier to hear the patterns (which I like). I think a midi unit with sliders and a manual mix might be the way forward. However, I also notice that other live coders basically don't seem to bother about this at all. I think perhaps they're using quite narrowly band-passed samples anyway, maybe? I think this is my biggest technical "problem" at the moment.
My old housemate who lives in Sheffield came to watch my set, which was really nice. Had no idea what to expect and she really enjoyed it :D Later I was at a party she was hosting and apparently it had been described as "lesbian music" which is very very very funny to me given that nobody performing was a lesbian and only one of us was a woman...
Can't wait to do it all again!