To LFI or Not to LFI
I had been very skeptical of LFI. My thoughts were mostly centered around:
- I need to hear everybody to play
- The end result will be mud
Both concerns are false, but that’s the empirical reality. I’m not going to argue the point. I’ll provide some links below so you can check out what we produce with and without LFI.
LFI is a specialist’s delight. The musician is separated from the impossible task of improvising with the entire ensemble. She is left with the manageable task of improvising with just one or two musicians.
Oftentimes it’s not that much fun to play in an LFI. The musician thinks, “um, this is lame. No one is playing bass/drums/guitar/EWI.” And then… the final mix works. Bass and drums, though they weren’t listening to each other, are grooving. Guitar and Ewi are doing whatever it is that guitar and ewi do together. The thing gels.
Why? Because the musician can focus on interacting with the other musicians in her “cell.”
I’m amazed that LFI works, but it does. Give it a listen: here’s an excerpt where all four musicians could hear each other, and here’s another where the LFI was “one person out.”. In this case, guitar and Ewi couldn’t hear each other, and bass and drums couldn’t hear each other. It works! It gels! It even grooves!
