Fully Live Electronic Contra

September 3rd, 2022
contra, music, technocontra
Contra dance traditionally has live music, which I think is key to why the music and dancing have been able to stay tightly coupled as they've both changed over the decades. Over the past ~14y, however, there have been a few different approaches to pulling elements of electronic music into contra dance:

(more)

For years I've wanted to add a "fully live" type here, where all sounds are initiated in the moment by the musicians. I now have something in this category I'm reasonably happy with:

Even though there's a lot going on, it's all live. Cecilia is playing fiddle, bringing in an octaver effect at 0:16. I'm playing piano with my hands and drums with my feet (note the drum pattern changes at 0:16 and 0:47). I'm also playing bass (starting at 0:16), where the beat of the drum initiates the notes and the piano left hand chooses which note to play. And then I'm using a breath controller (measuring how hard I'm blowing) to pulse a supersaw that, as with the bass, follows my left hand.

There are still places where I don't quite have the sound I'm imagining, where listening back makes me grimace a little, or where I can't yet do as many things at once as would sound best, but I'm excited about Kingfisher, and this is a really fun area to explore.

Referenced in: Substituting Talkbox for Breath Controller

Comment via: facebook, lesswrong, substack

Recent posts on blogs I like:

Ozy and Vasili Review Lilo and Stitch

Sometimes my seven-year-old, Vasili, wants to see some godawful movie that makes me want to melt my eyeballs out of my head.

via Thing of Things June 27, 2025

Elixir's Last Dance

On May 18th, the contra dance band Elixir had their last gig ever. The dance was packed: there were three hundred people. It was the only dance BIDA has ever done where they sold tickets. People flew from across the country just to hear Elixir play one la…

via Lily Wise's Blog Posts June 5, 2025

Workshop House case study

Lauren Hoffman interviewed me about Workshop House and wrote this post about a community I’m working on building in DC.

via Home April 30, 2025

more     (via openring)