[Music]
the problem with music is that it's so
perfect isn't it so perfect isn't it so
perfect isn't it so perfect so thank you
thank you so if I was going to ask you
if you wanted to come up here right now
and have a go on this instrument I am
pretty sure that almost all of you would
say no way because the idea of coming up
here and not being any good at it is
pretty terrifying but if I just showed
you some kind of new games console or
some kind of like crazy interactive VR
experience you'd feel pretty differently
because the thing is you're not really
supposed to be good at a game you're
supposed to enjoy it I mean short you
could become the world number one at
Grand Theft Auto but if we saw the world
number one at Grand Theft also played it
we'd want some of the action because
what we see is someone who's enjoyed
themselves so much so often that they've
just naturally become really good at
something we see the enjoyment behind
the being good but musicians spend days
weeks months maybe even years perfecting
their albums the we spend ages listening
to them so we actually train ourselves
to expect music to be just so so it's
kind of inevitable that we end up
feeling like we can't make music unless
we're exceptionally talented and we've
had years and years of training but
music could be so much more than that
when apart from anything else this is a
hell of a lot of fun and we're all
missing out
[Music]
okay so I'm about to stop making music
and now I'm talking that's right in case
you hadn't noticed but the thing is with
talking something very different happens
because as soon as anybody says
something we just habitually come up
with things that we want to say back so
if I wasn't on this stage right now and
I was just having a conversation with
you you would be full of your ideas on
this topic which should be ready to
interrupt me with but if I was making
music shouldn't happen
why well in the case of language we've
got a whole bajillion different contexts
in which we use it so in word land you
know we do have this really high end
stuff like novels and poetry and great
oratory and so on but most the time when
we use language we're using in
completely unplanned ways in context
just aren't really fussed about quality
at their first about connection and
interaction that we we chat we text we
banter we pillow talk and tweet and so
on and because our word diet is mostly
made up of this very easy to use stuff
if we come across something exquisite
like a great novel or a beautiful poem
we can appreciate it
but it doesn't make us feel like we
should just give up words forever
because the thing is we speak and
understand language on a whole bunch of
different levels so what if we could
speak and understand music on a whole
bunch of different levels well we kind
of got the understanding down already so
I reckon that nobody here has ever gone
to evening school to learn how to nod
your head along to the be alright and we
all know a Duff note as soon as we hear
one it's this instinctive we know it
some recent research as she showed that
to people from cultures with no shared
references whatsoever could still
clearly understand the emotional content
behind each other's music and in fact
there's a huge amount of evidence that
suggests that language itself actually
originated from some kind of musical
commune
nation so what would a musical
conversation look like or sound like
when you start to imagine it it's got
some pretty cool features that you just
wouldn't get with words for a start
music gets better and better the more
people you've got talking over each
other but with words when that happens
it's game over here is a happy chord
here is a sad chord and you can morph
continuously between happy and sad
so you know I spend a lot of time these
days thinking about what's happened
recently to image creation so images are
now really easy to create and super easy
to share so we actually live in a can
snap will snap world Instagram has made
us all photographers so now we actually
speak photography and what these
platforms have done is have basically
taken an infinite number of very
technical options and they've whittled
them down in pretty clever way to a very
small number of really
easy-to-understand ones but crucially
are infinitely combined able in creative
ways and that is what I'm trying to do
to music by making the software behind
this instrument so when I started making
it I actually just wanted to make some
kind of crazy DJing software that would
allow me to play back and creatively
mash up the tracks that I'd spent hours
and days and weeks and months composing
but then bit by bit I started to add
features that would allow me to
improvise and then I started to
improvise more and more my live shows
and as I did that more and more I began
to get this real sense of the
possibility of music as an immediate
response to a present situation rather
than just kind of reading out some
musical statement that I crafted in the
past and I just fell head over heels in
love with improv and so now this has
evolved into an instrument that's all
about improvising music sentence by
sentence so I don't have that many
options but they're really quick to get
to and easy to combine so let's say I
want to make a bass line I just pick a
bass and then just start messing around
with it
when I get them you're like like rub it
on a modifier I select modifier rabbit
what is face let's just let's just smash
it - Buster broke in here right yeah all
right I
[Music]
the point is it's simple and it's quick
and it's easy to combine which allows me
to make music moment by moment sentence
by sentence endlessly so currently I can
only really have a conversation with
myself which kind of makes me clinically
insane but the dream is to build a
platform that will allow us all to
communicate musically like this moment
by moment sentence by sentence in an
endless conversation because the thing
is we are all connected in so many ways
that we can't even imagine yet and the
only way that we discover those
connections is through communication and
we communicate in so many more ways than
just words and I want to make music one
of them thank you
[Applause]