So for me the question is - are there specific methods of control, ways
of looping if you like, that produce different end results for the listener
(in as much as the endless variety of subjective responses to music muddies
such a question)? In other words, how do we turn people on with loops,
and what do we turn them onto and into?
[snip]
Man, if I could turn people on with loops, I'd be
trying to get all those women's group and organization gigs. :) I'd use
all 8 tracks on Mobius! Just kidding. I follow you. It is a hard
question, because I find that very few people in my audiences actually pick up
on the fact that I am looping or even care about the technical subtles of what
I'm doing, but instead they just hear the music as a final output. I can sort
of tell what turns them on based on the comments I get from certain songs. For
instance, here in Boise, whenever I play at a public event, people love it
when I loop and produce more flamenco, Latin/Brazillian, contemporary jazz, or
Middle-Eastern style looping arrrangements....it's that Jesse Cooke
appeal. People love the sound of an exotic nylon string guitar!
This is when I get the most comments....but when I play a really experimental
or avant-garde piece....I could sware I hear crickets in the audiences.
Although maybe one out of every 20 listener will come up to me and ask how I
am producing all that sound...which launces into a discussion about
looping....and those people are typically musicians themselves.
So, the answer to your question to me depends on
the audience...but if I'm playing for the masses the answer is utterly
simple....whatever I do with loops that sounds like popular music turns them
on. They are attacted to familiar structures, AA-B-A, etc and
melodic simplicity. The loops are just incidental to the final output, and
that's all they really care about, end of story. In this case, then, if
you can use your looping gear to produce music that has popular apeal, based
on what that is in the charts, then that turns folks on. Here is where
Next Loop comes in handy and other nifty tricks that can allow you sound
bigger than you really are. They are attracted to the familiar like
moths to a flame. If you use some technical script that takes your ambient
loop and chops it into a sequence...they don't care about how you do this much
as the final output and how it makes them feel...hopefully good and happy. If
I'm at an experimental music festival, then that completely
different....people become much more interested in the looping
technique. But mostly when play experimental, I am not trying to turn
anyone on but myself....to meet or exceed my own personal standards as a
musician.
yeah, ahh, I guess put more simply, can loop compositions or loop
structures teach us anything about the way repetition works in the world
around us, or indeed, the way we might be able to apply it in our everyday
lives?
omjn
I think so, inasmuch as we are a part of the
world, and the very laws of physics that produce repeating cycles in the
universe, from planetary and atomic revolution, tides, seasons, menstration
cycles, sine waves in sound and electricity, sleep cycles, etc, also
impact the way we think, behave, and view the world. Again, in
general people are attacted to repetition, which is why many of us like
playing with loops. Its' like we are creating systems that resonnate with the
world and our own internal workings as human beings. We are repetive and
habituatl beings using tools to create yet more repetition in the world. It
feels right to many of us...though some of us rebel and go against the grain
because we can, and because we are on the extreme ends of the bell curve. Even
the bell curve repeats itself in nature...so deviations from repetition repeat
themselves in the larger system.
Kris
