Sonic Performance: Week 4 – Experimenting with Sound, Building Loops & Ideas

This week my main focus has been on playing, experimenting, and exploring different sounds and ideas within Ableton Live and the Push 3. I wanted to give myself the space to be creative without overthinking the outcome,

allowing ideas to develop more naturally. 

A lot of my time has been spent layering sounds, building initial loops, and experimenting with different effects and processing techniques. Through this, I’ve started to get a clearer sense of the overall sonic direction for the performance, even though it still feels quite open and in progress. 

At times, I found the process becoming quite repetitive, particularly when working with vocal layers, which made the creative process feel a bit challenging. I think I hit a bit of a creative block. To work through this, I decided to create some pre-made assets within my set template, which really helped me to visually structure my ideas and keep things moving. 

I began creating drones, rhythmic ambiences, and drum patterns, some of which I developed in Logic before importing into Ableton, and others that I built directly within Ableton Live. This helped me expand beyond just vocal layering and gave me more to work with compositionally. 

I also decided to incorporate some of my own instruments into the project. I’m fortunate to have a small collection, and it felt important to bring them into the performance rather than relying solely on digital sounds. I experimented with the harp, which fits nicely with the ethereal aesthetic I’ve been aiming for. I also explored using the violin. Although I’m far from a trained violinist, and the instrument itself doesn’t always stay in tune, it allowed me to create some really interesting textures. While they may not be perfect, they’ve been inspiring and have opened up new ideas. 

One of the biggest challenges this week has been continuing to learn Ableton Live and the Push 3. While it often looks intuitive in tutorials, it has taken me quite a while to get my head around it, and I’m still learning. That said, I can definitely see the potential and why it’s such a powerful tool for live performance. 

Another technical challenge I faced was recording my process. When I initially documented my work, the audio quality in the videos was poor, so I decided to record the live audio separately using my Zoom H6 and then sync it to the video afterwards. This took extra time, but it was worth it for the improvement in quality, and it’s likely a workflow I’ll carry forward into my final performance.