Mitchell Beck is a Seattle-based percussionist who combines traditional percussion with electronic and live looping techniques. His performances focus on improvisation, layered with voice, percussion, and electronic sounds using tools like MainStage and loop stations. His approach emphasizes accessibility and variety, blending experimental, pop, and rock influences to engage a wide audience. Beck self-taught much of his audio technology skills through online resources during the pandemic, with formal education supporting his foundational percussion skills. His goal is to demonstrate the versatility of percussion enhanced by technology, expanding perceptions of what percussion music can be. Overall, his work showcases innovative performance methods that merge live instrumentation with electronic processing to create dynamic, engaging musical experiences.

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Mitchell Beck is a well-known percussionist based in Seattle. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in percussion performance from Indiana University. Since 2012, he has performed in solo, chamber, orchestral, and experimental settings, with a strong focus on live looping. He’s passionate about electroacoustic composition, audio processing, and multimedia collaboration. 

Javi Garza: Tell us a little bit about your background and how that’s influenced your area of expertise. 
Mitchell Beck: In college I got really into electronic artists like Aphex Twin. I was curious; how do they make these sounds? That interest pushed me to explore electronic music and technology, especially in graduate school. The composition side of things was early on in my undergraduate. I kept writing contemporary classical pieces throughout school. Graduate school is where I got into the tech side of things. Some of my friends were into audio production, so I started exploring that world. By the end of graduate school, I was just starting to get deeper into it.

Garza: How much did you learn in a classroom setting versus going out to the real world on a gig and performing trial and error?
Beck: A lot of the aspects like composition or writing songs were supported through lessons and feedback. One of my percussion teachers helped a lot with composition alongside playing. And then I took composition lessons for a few years in school. So, there’s a lot of crediting some of my decision-making as a composer to more of studying it in school with someone. But as far as technology is concerned, a lot of that was after I graduated. It’s basically just YouTube university. There are many resources out there, so I did a lot of self-learning. It was right in the pandemic area era too, so, I had a lot of time to just sit at home and learn about that stuff.

Garza: What can people expect from your PASIC session?
Beck: As the title indicates, it’s heavily based on the use of live looping to create music. A lot of the looping is going to be percussion based, but also voice looping and software synthesizers, so some is electronic. I will be looping percussion and applying live processing such as re-pitching sounds through Main Stage. I will demonstrate how several tunes are constructed and performed in this way, so it should be fun. My session will include different styles, which should offer a little something for everyone there. 

Garza: How did you choose this specific topic for PASIC? 
Beck: It’s what I’m most passionate about right now. I started using loop pedals in grad school. I was inspired by the band El Ten Eleven. The guitarist uses a double-neck guitar and loops, and the drummer brings in electronics. I thought, “What would that look like with percussion?” It became my favorite way to perform.

Garza: Walk us through your typical setup for a live loop percussion performance. Tell us about your go-to instruments, interfaces, and software. 
Beck: The setup is no bigger than hauling my drumset somewhere. I use a lot of found-object instruments like bottles and pans, smaller percussion instruments like maracas, and a vibraphone, which is essential to the setup. I started incorporating a kick drum, too. In addition to the instrumental aspect, I do vocal performance. I run everything through a Scarlett interface and MainStage, then into a Boss RC-300 loop station, and out to a P.A.

The setup is always changing. I’ve homed in on the vibraphone, and my found objects are consistent these days, but I continue to switch other things out now and then. I also use this for singer-songwriter sets with smaller instruments like the ukulele. I like how flexible it is. I don’t think I’ll ever reach a point where I’m always using the same things.

Garza: When you’re creating live looping, how do you approach your layering and your structure? 
Beck: Mostly, I improvise. I pick a rhythm or groove and layer from there. I’ll explore for 30 minutes, then condense it into a short piece. I rarely write full pieces in advance; the setup really encourages improvisation.

Garza: Would you say your music has a distinct sound?
Beck:: For sure; I think some of that lends itself to the setup and instruments and how it changes depending on what I’m doing. I find myself being attracted to certain types of sounds, such as diverse types of found objects. And again, the vibraphone is very integrated as my melodic and harmonic percussion instrument. Those sounds create a cohesive sound world that I use a lot. In that way, I can reflect contemporary, progressive, and ensemble compositional elements. Perhaps because I did like a good bit of Afro-Cuban playing in school, a lot of my music is in six or in three.

Garza: What kind of experience are you hoping to create for the audience at your session? 
Beck: My session will be performance-driven. My goal is to demonstrate the musical capabilities of this type of technology integrated with percussion. I will stop occasionally to explain things, especially for people unfamiliar with looping. I hope everyone finds something to connect with. In terms of education, I am going to explain a lot of my process on a very fundamental level. I am hoping to cover a large variety of styles and sounds so that everyone can enjoy it. 

Garza: Will people need experience with tech or looping to enjoy it?
Beck: Not at all. Through different genres and sounds, I can get into the experimental side of things deeply, so this session should have music that just about anyone in the audience can enjoy. I have always wanted to be experimental but still be accessible to a general audience with the way I write and perform. A constant philosophy for me is trying to write music that pushes boundaries in a way that anyone could enjoy or at least appreciate. The challenge is blending the experimental, pop, and rock influences in a way people can connect with each other.

Garza: What challenges came up while preparing this presentation?
Beck: We have talked about trying to create a session’s worth of music that an audience member can relate to in some way. Staying accessible in some way and appealing to a wide audience is always a challenge. In a more technical sense, performing with the loop pedals is very enjoyable, and it is obviously based on recording small snippets of sound that continue to record or play back. As a performer, the difficulty can be to get lost in adding layers to the loop and then, all of a sudden, it’s been ten minutes on the same developing line. That can get really boring for an audience, especially when it’s really redundant. In looping, you develop ideas, but you don’t want the listeners to start wondering if it’s going to go anywhere. Building form through this structure can be a little bit tricky sometimes. You have to develop ideas in a concise way to let the song truly evolve and continue forward like a piece of music should. I want to maintain an interesting form, without any idea overstaying its welcome. It feels like a puzzle. This is really one of my first deep dives into using MainStage. I’ve always been aware of it and used it a little bit, but this was a really good chance to build out a full session in a full concert file on MainStage.

Garza: Do you have any advice for percussionists hesitant about technology?
Beck: Start small. There is a ton of information online. I learned most of it from YouTube. Pick something that interests you and take it one step at a time.

Garza: What do you hope your session adds to the field?
Beck: I want to show that percussion can be central to more than just concert music. Technology opens new ways to compose and perform. I hope it expands people’s ideas of what percussion can be.

LINKS
mitchellbeckmusic.com
Instagram: @mitchellbeckmusic

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