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Looper's Delight
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<<Anyway! I needed to point out something about Philip Glass' music with respect to looping. The only looping is from the compositional standpoint, and not because of any technology. To see an orchestra play his work is something else, I imagine - the Ensemble alone looked like they shed quite a lot of sweat at the Kitchen, Mr.. Glass playing keyboards also, and conducting using accentuated nods of his head, which sported a bushy cloud of hair (then). They were playing it all, man. However, it Wasn't IMHO 'looping' as most of us on this list know it. More like a compositional 'repeat', but then I know not much of music composition in the parochial-classical sense. :) Anyone? Is 'repeat' the correct musical term? I *know* it's not 'loop'. :)>> Ok, I'm sure I'm not the only "classically" trained musician here, but I'm the one who checked my e-mail three times today, so I guess I get first crack at the official explanation of all this stuff. Mr. Glass is what's called a Minimalist composer. Other famous Minimalists are Steve Reich (composed "Electric Counterpoint", performed by Pat Metheney) and John Adams (composed "The Death of Klinghoffer", and "Nixon in China", as well as the Minimalist landmark "In C"). The basic idea of Minimalism in music is to compose peices with a minimal amount of motivic material--just a couple little ideas, or hooks. The interest from the piece comes from the very gradual and subtle change introduced to the piece over time. (Make no mistake--these pieces are composed, there is no improvisation involved.) Glass, for example, tends to create change in his pieces through additive and subtractive processes--adding a note to a motive, or taking one away. (If this idea doesn't make sense in print, just listen to his music--you'll know what I mean.) Listening to these pieces is very much like watching clouds move across the sky, in a good way. Minimalism, by it's very nature, involves a LOT of repetition (repetition is certainly a viable term here). In this way it is sort of like looping. Certainly people who can listen to looped music and think it's interesting would probably relate to Minimalist work, at least on some level. The movies Koyaanisqatsi and Powaqatsi (I'm pretty sure on the spelling of the two) are excellent introductions to the work of Philip Glass, as there are really stunning visual accompaniments to the music. Other pieces to check out would be "In C" by John Adams (a piece in which several players play different little fragments of music in the key of C), and "Piano Phase" by Steve Reich. "Piano Phase" is pretty cool. Basically, two pianists play the same 12 note repeated pattern, starting in unison. One player then speeds up ever-so- slightly, until their pattern has shifted one note ahead of the other player's. This goes on until the faster player has come all the way around the pattern to play in unison again. You can imagine that it's pretty hard for the "steady" player to keep an even tempo. Anyway, the piece takes around twenty minutes to play all the way through, and it's really cool. When played well, you can hear all these crazy sub-patterns and cross rhythms in the "in between" parts. I've been trying to play it on guitar, with the old JamPig playing the steady, but the pattern is a bit un-guitaristic (poor me! I'll have to practice...). Drew W.