About five years ago, I made my way through a crowded venue to score a good viewing spot at the Tortoise show. Being that the band had somewhat of an eclectic following, I expected the opening act to fall far from what would be considered mainstream. But during this particular show, the openers took the stage with only a fold-out table and two laptops.
I am a geek for the evolution of live music, but watching two people sit in sedation in front of a crowd of thousands seemed near criminal for a live setting. As much as I tried to focus my attention of the abstract sounds that took over the venue’s sound system, I couldn’t stop wondering if the duo was simply pressing the “play” button and nodding their heads in unison while sharing a online game of solitaire. Even if they were actually queuing up sampled loops, was that really a performance? Needless to say, I wasn’t very impressed. From that point forward my perception of the laptop performance would forever be skewed.
Flash forward to five years later and you’ll find a slew of software applications that make the laptop one of the most versatile instruments available on the market. Programs like Abelton Live, Reason, Traktor Scratch, and Serato Itch provide artists with live performance tools that rival the now seemingly antiquated two turntables and a microphone set-up.
Five years after first witnessing the awkward laptop performance during the Tortoise show, the evolution of digital music has found itself seated on the stage of New York’s famed Carnegie Hall. Eight students of Princeton University’s Princeton Laptop Orchestra (aka PLOrk) recently joined the American Composers Orchetra for a debut demonstration of a laptop performance that works.
Check out the PLOrk rehearsal footage, lead by composer Dan Trueman:
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