1-man bands: Show of hands

THOA

New member
Hi guys,

This question goes out to 1-man bands in this forum.

I'm not talking about crazy musicians who have multi-instruments attached to their own body (harmonica in the mouth, guitar in the hand, drums on the back, tambourine on the feet and cymbals on the head kind). I'm talking about folks who basically produce their own music and not have it played by some band.

My question is, if there is an opportunity to perform your tracks, on the condition that you go on stage as a one man band, how would YOU do it?
 
Reason I'm asking is cos of a possibility of organising a gig featuring 1-man bands. I know there is one organisation who had done this before (Silentt), but not sure what happened to them.

Anyway, just wondering about whether the one man bands here have a certain idea or formula to make their performances interesting given these circumstances.
 
imho, one man operation show to be interesting

1) Having the right genre gig to play in

2) With the right style of music to suit the gig style

3) Incorporate at least one form of instrument live playing, add live looping, showcase how a piece of music start from scratch, build up, adding more parts, take out different parts, build up new parts and fade into another track. Basically the show(perhaps 30 to 45 mins) will be a continuous action which tell a story with no stoppage.

4) Visuals plaing in back ground of abstract animals, body organs, human activity, travelling on road with arty farty special effect to symbolize human emotions, thoughts or action that is in line with the music

5) Having shitload of diy synth, weird looking gear, flashing LED, ds lite, psp, toilet pipes, rusty sax, chainsaw, preplanted audience making weird noise, booing, throwing things at performers, fake possession which induce trance and ended up jamming with performer on their gear

6) Playing in close up environment where audience is part of the perfomers by walking around, lying down, behind actual performers and see how the music is being done on the gear, laptop what so ever

7) Trippy lights, candles, playing prerecorded sound of our local environment gently softly in the background over PA, blending with the sound of the space of performance, audience, performers etc

8 ) live sampling of the sound of the gig venue, tweak the sound over laptop, blend with own piece of music whart so ever.

9) Projector which have live feed on what ever the performer is doing on gear, laptop etc. For the gearhead to look behind the cold looking gear and peeping into the perspective of performer.(if the performer is just doing spacebar triggering and playing minesweeper at sametime, then forget bout this)

10) Performer random pick anyone in audience make them sit infront of the gear/laptop, instruct them what are the knobs, keys what so ever that can be touched and manipulated, give them free play to do what ever they can, within controlled situation of the limitations(of the keys, knob they can play with). Performer will sit beside, sampling the sound/music of the selected audience, re process it, loop it, cut it etc. Or even just do live visual in accordance to what the selected audience can come up with

imho and wanky/stupid for some. It doesnt suit the typical karaoke, play back backing track, sing/play guitar to it kinda. Imho, if thats the kind of music being presented in a OMO(one man operation) style, it will be boring and lacking the energy, vibe or visual aspect, comparing to watching a full band plaing on stage.

edited: added for last part, if playing the norm of music as in structured format songs, then the first few songs being played might have to grap the attention of the audience, give them some sweeties with the first few track and the rest of the show will be easier to make them listen and not leave the place for toilet break, smoke break etc
 
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i am in a band plus doing my own recording. My 1-man band (aka me) is currently focusing on funeral doom. I'm thinking if I ever play on stage I would just record my own backup tracks to play while i play the guitar, synth and do the vox. Maybe use a drum machine as well. Some tracks that i've done last year as a demo are here @ J on Myspace
 
Pathein bro, you pretty much covered a lot of ground with your reply. Not sure how much a gig like that will cost to the organisers. I know for a fact that musical implements is on the onus of the musicians to prepare, but projectors and ambience lighting is something added. Then again, if there are no drums or extra amps that need to be rented, it may not be as bad.

I think the audience for such a gig should approach this gig with an open mind. Should not expect what the normal gig would offer. The organiser will have to really think about the marketing aspect of this. Other than that, a sit down, passive type audience is good enough. I mean, isn't that the kind of audience we are getting at most gigs anyway? Heh.
 
To the lay audience, they will be amazed when u do live looping. the audience participation mentioned by pathein sounds pretty good.
 
10) Performer random pick anyone in audience make them sit infront of the gear/laptop, instruct them what are the knobs, keys what so ever that can be touched and manipulated, give them free play to do what ever they can, within controlled situation of the limitations(of the keys, knob they can play with). Performer will sit beside, sampling the sound/music of the selected audience, re process it, loop it, cut it etc. Or even just do live visual in accordance to what the selected audience can come up with

we should do this at the local hawkers ...how?
 
interesting, nt sure live looping myself found two links tt might help

What is live looping

Code:
[URL="http://www.livelooping.org/whatis.htm"]http://www.livelooping.org/whatis.htm[/URL]

Some gd example!

Code:
[URL="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZ-V-Kd7o38"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZ-V-Kd7o38[/URL]

Music can be played in this way too, how cool! but think its only gd for repititive kinda piece, chances are if you play steve vai kinda music, live looping's not gonna help hahaha
 
If I ever do a gig one day, I'll probably rely on sequencing only for vocals and sound effects since I use a lot of overlays... I'm quite keen on using instruments tho, to replace the sequenced parts.. just to see how I could bend creatively and switch between them. Kinda like how Bjork remade her songs acoustically for her MTV performances. Awesome stuff.
 
we should do this at the local hawkers ...how?

mwahahaha, the food better be edible and fairly tasty at the end, if not, gonna turn into 'fear factor" street fusion from the deeper lorongs reality show.


Not sure how much a gig like that will cost to the organisers. I know for a fact that musical implements is on the onus of the musicians to prepare, but projectors and ambience lighting is something added

heh, for cost saving and diy spirit(with audience in mnd), just put a table in middle of audience, with laptop on the table. Instruction being printed out clearly on how to select the visuals and play back according to time frame. Various alarm clocks will be put on the table with numbers on it and set to sound off at different timing withing a particular performer's performance set. When alarm sounded, audience to go over the table, off the alarm, play back the visuals on laptop, look into it and tripped out, till the next alarm clock sounding out, another group of audience will take over, off alarm clock, play another set of visuals and so on

Performer will continued with his/her performance while audience doing their part on de- activiating the alarm clocks and trigger visuals.

And to cut down some cost on trippy lighting and feel, place candles, incense, aroma therapy stuff at various spot in the performance place(of course with safety in mind, fire extinguisher which are working and not expired to be place at prominent areas for emergency usage) encourage audience to light up, blow off candles as and when.

oh, and encouraging audience to bring own pillows.

hehe, the above of course, will be make known vaguely to people who might be interested to attend the show so that they can roughly gauge how wanky, nonsensical and free, folks can be to come up with somthing like that and expect audience to be siao as well
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I think the audience for such a gig should approach this gig with an open mind. Should not expect what the normal gig would offer. The organiser will have to really think about the marketing aspect of this. Other than that, a sit down, passive type audience is good enough. I mean, isn't that the kind of audience we are getting at most gigs anyway? Heh.

heh, the audience would most likely be friends and friends of performers plus some curious folks, just like typical local gigs i guess.

to make audience have response, either

1) play harsh noise, aka mindfcukingboy style(he is my hero!!!).

2) play so boring until performer also yawning(yes it true, i attended a show before of some arty sound thingy. Caught one of performer yawning half way thru set) At least i was amused by it to forget that the sound wasnt exactly what i like, in sound. Being amused by it was my response.

3) play boring music till audience cant take it and walk out(response), leaving only poor friends inside, too polite to walk out. To pacify friends, make sure theres chicken wings outside venue for them to eat at least when show is really too boring to watch(mwahahahaha, bro aging youth, remember this??)
 
once in a blue blue moon - I do 1 man accoustic of songs I like to play or my originals ... (e.g your recent Sabbath gig Thoa)
 
It all depends on the genre. I do it quite often in the past, till I became too busy. But I'm planning for one this year - featuring my originals. One-man-band concept of course. All sequenced - from full band to full orchestral backing. Playing keyboards and my new digital trumpet. But too bad - won't be doing that in Singapore...
 
Bedroom player here, can consider me a 1 man band. I play the guitar and a bit of bass and uses drum loops. Sometimes when I got the inspiration I create short tracks. Have a mic and preamp also but so far hasn't really utilise them. Never imagined to perform alone.
 
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