Los Angeles Meet Up

[vorp40]

Wondering if there are any Los Angeles Linnstrumentalists hanging here?
I've had mine a little over a year and am enjoying learning on my own as a passion project. Been starting to jam a little with friends, introducing it in songs where I can (mostly) keep up.
I thought it might be fun and productive to swap techniques, philosophies, tech, or whatever in person if anyone is interested in a meet up. Maybe even jam? I've been starting to get into custom synth programming (with Juce) and sound design too. Would love to swap ideas in-person about such topics. Reach out if you might be interested.

[FranklyFlawless]

Wondering if there are any Los Angeles Linnstrumentalists hanging here?

Well the only one I know about myself is Roger Linn. You may want to consider participating in the monthly Zoom meeting and asking around within it if others would want to join.

I like your idea a lot, and I have thought about similar community-building plans, but they can be demanding. How often do you want to organize a meet up?

[Roger_Linn]

I actually live in Silicon Valley, though I lived in LA until 1989.

[FranklyFlawless]

Right, I confused Los Angeles with California. Now I understand why there has been a lack of response in this thread due to its specific geographical region.

[vorp40]

My guess is a lot of Linnstrumentalists, maybe especially in the LA area, are using theirs for adding expression to recordings.
I'm trying to learn mine as my "main" instrument, trying to develop left/right hand independence, and all the things you do on a new instrument: chords, melodies, improvisation, jamming; also the quest for "my" sound (e.g. patch). It's challenging! Where's the Intro 101 technique book for "Baby's first Linnstrument". Ha! Anyway, that's kind of my main impetus behind trying to connect in person with other players.

[Roger_Linn]

Hi vorp,

I’m guessing most of the LA owners aren’t on the forum. You might check with Perfect Circuit, my LA dealer that sold most of the units there. Maybe they’d be willing to contact the owners.

[FranklyFlawless]

I'm trying to learn mine as my "main" instrument, trying to develop left/right hand independence, and all the things you do on a new instrument: chords, melodies, improvisation, jamming; also the quest for "my" sound (e.g. patch). It's challenging! Where's the Intro 101 technique book for "Baby's first Linnstrument". Ha! Anyway, that's kind of my main impetus behind trying to connect in person with other players.

Me too. Both of my hands have independence, but I struggle to play in time or with an uninterrupted rhythm, so I have been thinking about trying out Fountaine's "finger zone" concept against the tritone layout sometime in the near future. I have yet to develop the skill required to improvise fluently on the LinnStrument, but I have already done so for the piano/keyboard, so I am not concerned whatsoever about my progress towards achieving it long-term. I already have plenty of documents for chord shapes, and I have a very developed ear for relative pitch, so generating chord progressions or melodies are a very low priority. "My sound" is definitely acoustic, lifelike instruments, since those were what originally captured my interest in the various Roger Linn Design YouTube videos.

I can talk plenty about technique, but I consider "chord mapping" far more important at the moment: identifying note positions within a limited boundary; chord inversions; and substitutions. I need that to be a subconscious process in muscle memory in order to focus on improvising solos. Both hands form different shapes due to their chirality, so each must recall their own version of "chord mapping" during performance, which has been a challenge for me due to it being double the amount of work compared to the piano/keyboard.

I keep in contact with Miles Parker, another LinnStrumentalist in British Columbia, and we discuss about the LinnStrument and surrounding topics (currently over SMS). If you are interested, we can exchange contact information for sharing more frequent musical progress.