Looper's Delight Archive Top (Search)
Date Index
Thread Index
Author Index
Looper's Delight Home
Mailing List Info

[Date Prev][Date Next]   [Thread Prev][Thread Next]   [Date Index][Thread Index][Author Index]

ProjeKct 2 @ Palookaville, Santa Cruz, CA...



>Hmmm....Miko hinted at this too I think.  I've been pondering this idea of
>"re-inventing" yourself musically.  Is it responsible or proper for an
>artist to take his or her rough sketches out on the road to present it to
>his/her audience?  Or is it more responsible to refine the work and 
>present
>it as a finished product?  

A good point, though in music performance the audience (and indeed the
performer) my want to introduce an element of risk; "classical" concerts
are all about presenting a previously accomplished work, but I suspect that
improvised music turns the performance into half-recital, half-bullfight
(will our hero survive?).  This can potentially kill some musics as far as
I'm concerned; whilst I often enjoy jazz I find that a great many players
are too busy trying to find new and ingenious scales to fit over a
particular change to worry about the audience or the melody.  Which is why
I prefer pre-bop jazz; there's less worrying about how clever one appears
and more (god help us) fun.

(I can tell I'm going to be in trouble after that one)

>As humans, I know that part of the experience
>and joy of reaching a new level or obtaining a goal is the journey
>itself....but...don't you feel cheated when someone presents you with
>something that is less than you know they are capable of producing? 
>Hmmm..... 

Possibly, and I think that most "improvising" musicians should know enough
stuff to provide a safety net for the off days.  However, I also hear of
times when musicians playing live present the audience with something MORE
than they know they are capable of producing.

>> >>structure in my looping compositions.  I'm tired of improvised
>> >>guitar-drones that go nowhere, are lifeless and dead, and brandish the
>> >>"Recorded live with no overdubs/Completely improvised" tag.
>>>BOOORRRRING.

I don't think that's necessarily fair - some of the best music I know of is
improvised loop stuff.  I don't think the format is necessarily dead just
because it's still in it's "novelty" phase.  Stereo is probably a good
example - I'm sure that by the early 70s all those wild uses of stereo were
boring the pants off people (Guitar hard left!  Drums hard right!  Singer
gets to play with Pan knob!).  But used effectively it can still impress.
There will always be a future for COMPETENT live looping improvisors.  But
due to the novelty of the gear, there seems to be a market at the moment
for ALL live looping improvisors.
 
>I've been experimenting with juxtaposing ambient loops with more melodic
>sections...something with a hook or rhythm.  I haven't really stumbled 
>upon
>anything that "works" but I certainly have cut and pasted a bunch of loops
>together in my computer!!  Honestly, I don't know what I'm looking
>for...but I'm fairly certain that I will know when I find it.  Hopefully. 
> 

I know that ultimately I'd want to compose, really compose, live looped
pieces the way Ed Alleyne Johnson (whose praises I regularly sing around
here!) does with looped electric violin.  However, I'm too busy/lazy
(delete as appropriate) to do so....

Michael