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How much do you play?
UK Virtuoso, Kaidi Tatham said: “I’ve got plugins that sound so live, I’ve had people asking me who’s playing, but the method I have is just to play it all in like a real player — so it’s all about timing.”
https://djmag.com/features/kaidi-tatham-trust-process
That quote ends with “timing” and I feel like this a deep topic. I follow Kaidi on IG, https://www.instagram.com/reel/CjkZjdXgNd4/?igshid=MDM4ZDc5MmU=, and I’ve seen SWAM, NI expansions on his laptop being played with amazing realism by him - with that being said, how much time do you spend just playing?
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Three hours per gig at the restaurant I have residency at. When producing however, I program everything in.
Nice! Do you play keys or any other instruments?
This is a great question, I think.
Are you asking: how much of the music/instruments are we physically playing vs programming/copy and paste of samples, sequencing etc?
Yeah, how much do you jam and not program. Just play, tinkering around. How much of that tinkering makes it to your completed projects?
32.9% playing, 39.7% programming, 19.4% sample/sampling, 8% generative apps.
To expand: I find that jamming supports “happy accidents”, that I end up using as a new way to play stuff. Have you discovered any playing tricks jamming?
Thank you Bob ❤️
Nice balance! Have you discovered any playing tricks jamming?
Just the keys there, and I sing but not at the same time (unless I have a drink while I'm playing 🤣 ).
😂 Have you discovered any playing tricks jamming?
Thanks for sharing the article! In past years, there was far more playing for me: punk, post rock, shoegaze, metal, ska bands, intermediate orchestra, AM jazz band, coffee shop residencies, a tiny west coast tour, performing with Odd Future’s Left Brain, and busking around my hometown
These days it’s making sure I practice enough to not get rusty, but I would like to start playing out again. When on the iPad, it’s about half and half, sequencing and programming, and also sampling guitar, playing keys, playing bass.
I'm not a musician, so barely any. I'm also learning Scaler and other generative tools so I actually force myself not to use a keyboard or pads to avoid playing familiar stuff and focus only on creating songs with different BPMs, grooves, keys and mode.
I do sometimes build patches and jam with some quick backing drums I'll hammer out, but I never record or save that. It's usually just an emotional release.
You’re welcome - wow, you have a lot of experience! Are there any shortcuts that you’ve learned from jamming over the years that you can share?
I play piano for at least 30 minutes each day, and variable amounts with other instruments.
Average Piano inputting one hour per week programming 10.
I tend to play everything, even if it's recorded to MIDI, because a performance is just a more fun way of creating music than inputting values into a piano roll. Drums are sequenced from playing the on-screen pads in NS2 or GarageBand, synth parts are recorded by playing the on-screen keyboard, and guitars are... guitars.
Oh wow! You are a maestro, what tricks of the trade can you share about jamming?
Yeah, I tend to record everything to MIDI too: AUM as mixer with Drambo as the MIDI recorder. Are there any jam session shortcuts you utilize?
Only these, Mike
https://forum.audiob.us/discussion/27029/part-3-the-judgemental-mind-and-why-its-worth-losing-for-a-musician
https://forum.audiob.us/discussion/27012/how-to-improve-your-keyboard-improvising-100-in-three-weeks
Thank you 🙏🏻 I will check them out now!
It depends what you mean by “play”.
In my case, I am not a keyboard player, but I’m not averse to using something like Animoog Z or KB-1 (or AUM’s on screen keyboard) to noodle about over other stuff, which can be programmed or generative.
Also, I’ve been following Sarah Belle Reid’s Moog Mavis course, and that’s set me off experimenting with unstable patches which are mostly played by tweaking knobs which has unpredictable results, and getting seriously interactive with the instrument - it’s almost like playing with another person in some ways, in terms of it responding to you and you responding to it.
I’ve also just started to experiment with using my voice again, and using things like envelope followers so the voice becomes a modulation source - so far nothing I’d care to inflict on the world, mind.
But if you’re feeling adventurous, I have an improvisation on YouTube using an unstable Mavis patch, interpatched with the Subharmonicon, which has been patched following some techniques I’ve learnt from 0VRLNDR. The output from the two hardware synths is then processed through MiRack modules with more modulation and recorded in AUM. So there is a programmed element here using the SubH’s sequencers, combined with live improvisation. NB if you’re after tunes, this is really not going to be your cup of tea! But I would argue it’s mostly played, Despite the fact that the Mavis keyboard is mainly affecting the SubH, and most of the action is knob-based.
I really like this book and how it separates the processes from intial idea/loop, fleshing it out and elaborating upon an idea, and finally arrangement.
https://makingmusic.ableton.com/?pk_vid=0d692e79219371ed1670805927cab1d5
Jamming shortcuts? Hmm, separating your sound design sessions from your production/writing sessions. Separating your playing and practicing sessions from your “performing” sessions, as in placing emphasis on getting things right during practice but when performing, keeping it rolling for an allotted amount of time. Getting your shortcuts down. Having your instrument racks, effect racks, samples, special sauce, organized and ready to go. I’ve been on a re-learning guitar kick lately, approaching it from a rhythm player, (something I wasn’t really doing in the past). I’ve found this Paul Jackson Jr dvd helpful, there’s also a jazz guitar for rockers series by Rick Beato I’ve been digging on, and this guy I just found out about recently, Rotem Sivan, he’s got a wealth of tutorials on his channel. There’s a bunch of modern guitarists that are killing it though and really pushing the envelopes, Tim Henson, Tosin Abasi, Mateus Asuto, Adam Neely, Nolly Getgood, Ichika Nito, Plini, Melanie Faye, Elizabeth Cummingham, so many
Being around other players that are more experienced/skilled can def help sharpen your playing. I find playing with others/groups is a little different than just jamming with loops/programming.
Compiling a working repertoire of songs in the vein you’d like to create, sorta like reference tracks or sources of inspiration.
Jamal, from Gospel Musicians has some nice keyboard tutorials on his channel.
Piano Pig is really good too. He did one recently with Buttonmasher that was really extensive.
Being around other players is definitely invaluable. Other players have shared their libraries with me, showed me their software workflows, Ableton hacks, 555 workflows, etc etc
Frequent, short practices are more valuable than sparse, and extensive/long practices.
I tend to play everything in real time when writing, capturing to audio as I go. I really try and avoid recording MIDI if I can, too easy to want to mess with it when likely it's faster to just replay it. Even when I use soft synths I tend to route those to a free audio track while I play, and just record that.
But I'm not a very good player overall, it's a ton of trial and error and just cut and pasting the good bits together. So I guess I kind have a foot in both camps really.
When it comes to performing my music live, I don't do any "playing" of instruments, at least not usually. It's all audio loops or groovebox stuff I wrote in the studio. I tend to think of myself as more of an orchestrator than musician when I play live, focusing on building the songs up and transitioning between them as my 'performance'.
There's too much weird shit going on in my songs for me to try and play even 20% of it live, so I don't even try to pretend.
Gave it some thought. About 30 minutes of piano every day, maybe about a couple of hours of guitar in a good week (mostly slide guitar), probably no more than an hour of woodwind (EWI or alto sax), and can’t really think how much of everything else.
Most of the time I play a combination of things I know and improvised pieces. Haven’t been recording much for quite a while, but I probably should do it more often.
Pretend you have an audience in front of you while jamming.
Also, pretend that audience is naked.
I'm a Kaidi Tatham fan - just discovered him this year.
I'm not a full-time musician like Kaidi though. I have a non-music day job. So I tend to play my about 5 hours a week total, splitting time between electric violin and keys.