Week 9 Forum - Improvisation Group 3




Today was my week for the improvisation session. And what a session it was. I was luckily enough to improvise with Tyson Hopprich or better known as DJ Tr!p. This two hour session was my highlight of the year for me. Being a DJ myself, it was really great to be able to talk to DJ Tr!p about the industry and the music he is producing and has produced. Who knows, maybe in 10 years I will be taking an improvisation session!

I got there early to check out the setup and have a chat to DJ Tr!p. He was using a CD turntable connected to a DJ mixer and also a laptop running Fruity Loops. He also had a Gameboy Advanced connected to one of the inputs of the mixer. The Gameboy had a Gamboy Camera attached to it. He was incorporating the basic 8-bit sounds from the Gameboy into his mixing.

When everyone arrived he gave an awesome demo. He mixed the drum loops from Fruity Loops to the beats from his Gameboy. My “trained” ear could hear when the beats were slightly going out of time but DJ Tr!p was quick to correct them. He also scratched some samples using the CD turntable.

I have never seen this kind of experimentation before in DJs, and I really want to start doing this myself. I have a Gameboy Advanced at home so don’t be surprised if you catch me in a club pulling out some Super Mario tunes!

Our improvisation session went awesomely (is that a word?). I was on the piano and my plan of attack was to first figure out was key we were in. Then I would play the chords and play any note I think sounded good (I suppose that’s what improvisation is anyway). We did three takes and they all sounded pretty good. I swapped with Dragos on the last take and I was on the Juno Synth. I actually found this harder to perform with because my sound didn’t go with everyone else and I didn’t have time to flick through patches. Still I just had fun watching DJ Tr!p do his thang.

Overall today was just awesome and I really hope we have this kind of exposure in future forums. [1]

[1] The Awesome DJ Tr!p. 'Music Technology Forum Improvisation Session - EMU Space'. Lecture presented in the EMU Space, Electronic Music Unit, University of Adelaide, 21th September 2006.