In his live performances, comedian Reggie Watts frequently breaks into musical interludes by running his microphone through a loop pedal. Under the basis that these performances are limited exclusively to material that he can create vocally into a single microphone, I submit the question: To what extent could these performances be considered minimal?
Reggie Watts at TED
I admit, with this post I am probing the bounds of minimalism. I'd love to hear anything that people have to say in the comments section.
I'm in the middle of reading the Johnson article right now, but figured I'd post a quick response.
ReplyDeleteAs we discovered when discussing ambient music in DME with Steve Rush last semester, if one is not careful, it can be too easy to let some definitions expand too far, to encompass too much, until they become meaningless because they can refer to everything.
For me, as of right now, minimalism refers to an intent as much as it does context and/or resources. Though Reggie Watts uses limited material for his performances (only his voice and the means to loop himself), he is ready and willing to let his voice go anywhere. He is mimicking an entire ensemble at times and bouncing between different sounds, characters, ranges, etc. So, I would say no, this is not minimal, but the guy is extremely talented (even though I haven't really been able to get into him... yet).