Daedelus and his Monome

Yesterday I saw Daedelus perform on the Monome at de Verdieping. It gave rise to the question: What is the perfect performance instrument for electronic musicians? Does such an instrument exist at all? What does the audience want to see?

First of all, any device is better than a performer sitting behind his laptop with a mouse an nothing else. We all know he’s not checking his email but the fact that he could be is enough to conclude this is not a very pleasing way of addressing an audience, right?

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Can the human body be an instrument?

Yesterday I visited Steim to see Tanto de Nada for voice, live electronics and live video by duo bang.grab.stutter and Eric Lyon with The Biomuse Trio. Tanto de Nada is a very nice composition by Evelien van den Broek and Danny de Graan, in which the voice controls software processing the voice, resulting in a pleasant and dynamic sonic experience based on sung and spoken words in different languages.

The Biomuse Trio showed a work in progress by composer Eric Lyon consisting of sound input from violinist Gascia Ouzounian, processed by software controlled by sensors attached to Benjamin Knapps' arms. After the performances there was room for discussion and one interesting question arose: Do those sensors attached to a persons body form an instrument?

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