Chapter 11. Feeding back
A slim figure takes to the stage, dressed in orange and black, wreathed in a bandana, his guitar flipped over and strung for left-handed play. It’s the close of over three days of hedonistic and culturally shifting psychedelia and sound. Humans have recently, and for the first time, set foot in another world.
It’s 1969. It’s Woodstock. It’s Jimi Hendrix. During his set he splices metallic whale song into his fluid solos, coaxing sounds from his Stratocaster that guitars have no business making.
This is feedback. Not the negative feedback that dampens sound and enthusiasm. Positive feedback. Not gushing and uncontrolled, neither excessive nor insincere. There is an art to feedback.
Feedback, particularly positive feedback, is normally a sound engineer’s nightmare. A skilled guitarist can make it part of the performance, part of the music. For software engineers, offering and taking feedback, positive or negative, can be as much of an art form. When there’s a problem, it’s too easy to resort to silence or complaint. When there isn’t a problem, it’s too easy to resort to silence.