Reggie watts
So it’s just really every layer I add it’s like, “Is this what I want to add?” And then you have to commit to it. And then when I find something that I’m kind of grooving on, or it feels good as like a vibe, then I will record that and add that to the loop. I just start kind of messing with the effect and I start doing something vocally, and usually the sound of it will dictate what it could be. I just try to find a tempo that feels good and then try to do the right amount of bars to, you know, give me enough space to generate something. What just happened? What went through your mind as you started? You have to be conscious of those limitations. If I do a really strong beat and I like how strong it is and then I start adding too much on there, the beat gets weaker. You have to manage what you are layering over. You can layer stuff, but you can’t layer too many things because the earliest things that you lay down start to lower in volume, which is handy for some effects like you heard at the end like other things were starting to fade out the more I kept layering and layering. It records up to 15 seconds and that’s kind of it. I call it a linear looper just because you can only add to it, you can’t take away from it. What are the pedals you used to make this song?īasically, I have a reverb pedal called the Hall of Fame, which is a standard guitar reverb pedal, and then I have this Line 6 DL4, which is a looping pedal. Tune in to Good One every Monday on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Listen to the episode and read an excerpt of the discussion below. So, we came up with a plan: He’d record a new song on the spot for the interview, and together, we’d try our best to capture what was floating around that brain of his. Which made him a particularly difficult subject for Good One, Vulture Comedy’s podcast about the writing of jokes, since his writing process is to never write anything - it’s to get out of his own way. Watts is in such a flow state when performing his brand of improvised, abstract musical comedy that not only does he forget the song the next day after a show, he forgets it instantly when it’s finished. As Reggie Watts puts it, “It’s kind of like channeling in a way.” To put it simply, what researchers found is that while improvising, the portion of the brain in charge of creating is firing hot, and the self-monitoring portion is essentially shut off.
Last month, the Washington Post released an article about what happens in the brain while improvising, which included videos and studies about freestyle rappers, jazz pianists, and long-form improvisors.
Reggie watts license#
User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License additional terms may apply.Photo: Vulture and Terence Patrick/CBS via Getty Images Moving to Williamsburg, Brooklyn in 2006, Watts started to branch out into performing for television and film, while continuing to pursue live performance and the creation of new performance technologies. He also formed a theatrical collaboration with playwright Tommy Smith, and began developing web philosophy/content with online entrepreneur Jakob Lodwick, with whom he recorded the EP Pot Cookies. He shot comedic web shorts for Superdeluxe, Vimeo and CollegeHumor, where his video "What About Blowjobs?" became a viral hit. Wanting to concentrate on solo comedic performance, Watts moved to the Lower East Side, New York City, in 2004. Inspired by The State and Wet Hot American Summer, he began infusing spontaneous comedic material with the beat box-driven musical compositions. Then he experimented with improvising entire songs in solo acts with the Line 6, playing initial gigs at small Seattle venues and artist bungalows. He began using the Line 6 in live shows with Maktub, in order to replicate the duplicate harmonies from the recorded material. While touring years earlier with the Wayne Horvitz 4+1 Ensemble, Watts was forced to downsize his effects pedal from a Roland Space Echo tape delay to a Line 6 DL4 delay modeler, a smaller device that makes it easy to travel. Watts' genesis as a solo performer started to emerge at the beginning of 2002. His comic skills come into play in improvisational performance, as well as performance of written music. He performs regularly on television, radio, and in live theater. His shows are mostly improvised and consist of stream of consciousness stand-up in various shifting personae, mixed with loop pedal-based a cappella compositions. Reggie Watts (born March 23, 1972) is a Brooklyn, New York-based comedian and musician.