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Re: the meaning of loop music



At 10:53 AM 5/26/2003, ArsOcarina@aol.com wrote:
> >>The main people interested in attending are other
> >>people who play trumpet, and so most of the
> >>audience also consists of trumpeters.
>
>Not necessarily.

funny, you disagree, then give an example the supports me and not you:

>I would imagine that not many of the
>members of an opera audience actually sing opera.

neither would I. Opera is a clear genre of music, not an instrument or 
technique. When you say you are playing opera people know what you mean 
because they are familiar with the well established characteristics that 
make it opera. Fans of opera will come to listen, and the rest of us will 
leave quickly.


>I would also imagine that not all of the folks who are
>passionate "guitar music fanatics" even own one
>themselves -- perhaps they might be failed "wannabes"
>or something, but not necessarily.

Really? If I went into the house of one of these hypothetical non-guitar 
playing guitar music fanatics and examined their cd collections, what will 
I see? Will I see Andres Segovia and Buckethead and Marty Friedman and 
Dick 
Dale and Tuck Andress and Frank Gambale and Leo Kottke and Pat Martino and 
Roy Buchanan and Steve Vai all piled together? And the kicker, will they 
own any albums by Yngwie J. Malmsteen?

Somehow I doubt it. The only people who will be able to tolerate that wide 
a variation of styles and self-indulgent guitar playing will be other 
guitarists.

If you mean instead they like one particular music style that relies 
heavily on guitars, that isn't the point I was making. by "guitar music" I 
mean any style using a guitar. (or by "loop music" any style using looping)

>However, I know many,
>many people who avidly follow a style, or pursue a keen
>interest in a music created on one particular instrument
>or another, simply because that music "speaks" to them
>on some level beyond that of other musics. And, most
>of them are not even musicians themselves.

again, you seem to be confusing the genre with the instruments used. A 
versatile instrument can appear in a wide variety of music, and very few 
people's tastes will cross all those boundaries.

For example, "Blues" is a very guitar centric style. If one of your 
non-musician friends tells me they like "guitar music" when in their mind 
that really means they like Blues, and I say "hey, then you'll really love 
this album, it's a classic with lots of guitar" and I loan them Slayer's 
Reign in Blood, I'm certain I'll be getting my cd back very quickly. On 
the 
other hand, an avid guitarist, even if they don't like thrash metal, might 
spend some time analyzing the guitar techniques, harmonies, rhythms, solo 
phrasing, etc. before giving it back.

So far, that's also the way I've seen things work with Looping.

>Kim may be ultimately be right in his assertions about
>our narrower labeling of "loop music" limiting the technique's
>eventual appeal to the broadest possible audience and/or
>user base. But the folks with whom it has caught on so
>far have tended to be the incorrigible experimenters,
>tinkerers and creatively outside-the-box thinkers (whether
>they play buzuki, bass, bluegrass, blues . . . or whatever).
>I would think that THAT aspect of who the average LD list
>member is would be pretty apparent by now.

Be very careful with that assumption. The Looper's Delight mailing list 
has 
its own peculiar ways of attracting certain types of people and excluding 
and pushing out everybody else. From behind the scenes I see it a lot. 
This 
list makes for an interesting community unto itself, but it is not correct 
to assume it is representative of loopers as a whole. I consider it a 
small 
miracle that I was able to open things up enough so that people who were 
not just Robert Fripp clones/fanatics joined the list and actually stayed. 
In the early days you couldn't find a percussionist or dj on this list to 
save your life. That wasn't because they didn't exist, it was because the 
Fripp/ambient guitar fans took over first.

kim


______________________________________________________________________
Kim Flint                     | Looper's Delight
kflint@loopers-delight.com    | http://www.loopers-delight.com