More Music Video – New Public Beta experiments + Duo with Theo Travis

picture of some old book, by Steve LawsonHere are the latest couple of videos I’ve put up. The first is another of the experimental ideas I’m working on for the new album – this time I wanted to try something a little more solidly rhythmic, just to see how the replace functions interact with a percussive track. (the part is played by muting all the strings, and then using a ‘double thumb’ technique, more readily associated with slap bass, to get the percussive pattern).

Anyway, here it is – I edited out a chunk of it, cos after I created the loop, it went nowhere for quite a while. Remember, all these tracks are just one take improvs – they aren’t ‘compositions‘ that I’m working on, they are open ended, freewheeling experiments, where I try out technical possibilities, mess with arrangements and see what kind of things are thrown up serendipitously as I meander through music:

It’s got a beat… you can dance to it… 🙂 (more public beta music experiments from Steve Lawson) from Steve Lawson on Vimeo.

The second video is a a good contrast to this – it’s the only video I’ve ever found of Theo Travis and I playing together. It was filmed at the National Theatre in February, our first gig for about 18 months, and the tune is one from our duo CD, called Flutter – playing with Theo is about as easy and freeing as any musical situation can possibly be. He makes anything I play sound 5 times better than I imagined it could, and is an effortlessly inventive improvisor. I hope we get to play again soon:

If you want to keep track of all the videos I’ve been putting up on Vimeo, you can do so on my page there, or via the RSS feed of my uploads.

Does Darker equal Deeper?

An interesting comment thread has started up on this video of mine on Vimeo. The question seems to be ‘is darker music inherently deeper than lighter, more poppy music?’ – is it, as Steve Morton puts it in the comments, “more substantive?”

I tend not to try and play to other people’s expectations of what my music should or shouldn’t end up being – I’m terrible as second guessing how others will perceive what I do – but I am fascinated by people’s take on the nature of ‘dark’ music. I find that sometimes I gravitate towards darker, more dissonant music by a particular artist, but other times, it’ll be the more obvious melodic/diatonic pieces that maybe because they are easier to play seem imbued with a deeper level of communication.

What say you, commenters of the internet?

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