Re: Looping Catching on?

[Andre LaFosse <altruist@earthlink.net>]

Some thoughts on this thread...

First of all, as tends to be mentioned from time to time, it's a dubious
proposition to refer to looping as a specific genre of music. 
Electronically looping samples is so prevalent in popular music that
it's impossible to escape -- the most mainstream, middle of the road
singers today are using breakbeats in their arrangements.  I'm asssuming
that when people refer to "looping" as in the context of this thread,
they're referring more specifically to real-time looping, and even more
specifically to real-time looping using a tape loop-descended approach
as typified by the EDP/JamMan/Boomerang etc.  (I know some people have
and continue to argue with me on this point of lineage, but I maintain
that if the dual Revox experiments of the '60s and '70s had not
happened, units like the three mentioned above would likely not exist in
their present form, and certainly wouldn't be used in the way that they
are).

I can't help but think that there's an certain assumption being made
here, which is that real-time looping of this nature is more or less
synonymous with ambient washes of abstract sound, slowly building up and
drifting through gradual changes over periods of time.  Put simply,
people tend to put an "equals" sign between "ambient" and "looping," at
least in the sort of context that this thread is operating in.

I thinking there's a fundamental problem in trying to get widespread
visibility and mass acceptance for a form of music which is inherently
oriented towards being ignored.  Just about every "definition" of
ambient music I've read talks about the idea that it should lend itself
to hanging inconspicuously in the background at least as easily as
commanding one's attention.  That's fine, but when you start thinking
about getting that sort of music out to "the masses," you've got to
consider the overwhelming amount of information that the typical
TV-watching, magazine-reading, radio-listening person is bombarded with
on a daily basis.  There are literally thousands of artists out there
vying for a person's attention with in-your-face marketing campaigns and
promotional assualts.  This being the case, the odds are stacked against
a form of music that uses the idea of being inherently unobtrusive as
one of its primary maxims.

You also have to consider that any instrument is only as good as the
musician who plays it.  In other words, if you want real-time looping to
be recognized as a viable instrument/tool/musical approach by a lot of
people, you've got to be able to play your looping instrument, and
you've got to have something to say with that instrument that connects
with people.  The most open-minded audience listening in the most
high-profile circumstance in the world isn't going to help any if the
loopist can't give them a compelling reason to listen in the first
place.  Musicians in fringe genres can have a tendency to automatically
assume that what they do is too "sophisticated" for the "sheep-like
masses" to comprehend, without considering the issue of whether or not
their music is actually communicating anything other that the obscurity
of its own construction.

Putting real-time looping into non-ambient genres is imperative, as
well.  I've got to say that I find myself a bit irked by the occasional
threads that pop up on the list regarding what people would like to see
in future editions of looping gear, because I don't think loopists in
general have really come to terms with what the *current* crop of units
has to offer!  It's been over twenty years since Jaco Pastorious drew
cheers from crowds by performing a looping solo piece during his set
with Joni Mitchell on an ancient Electro-Harmonix delay, and at least as
long since Robert Fripp started doing dual Revox concerts in pizza
parlors and barber shops, thereby forever making himself the person most
commonly associated with real-time looping, much to the chagrin of many
other loopists.  

The tools that are available today eclipse those units in terms of
flexibility and function (I leave audiophile debates as to the finer
points of sound quality to those sufficiently inclined to obsess over
such minutae), but I'm not convinced that many people are moving on past
what the most visible practitioners were doing some twenty or thirty
years ago.

I haven't yet heard the Looper's Delight CD, but based upon a recent
post's remark that "not many people would be able to sit through a lot
of this kind of music," I'm inclined to think that there's a large
proportion of the same sort of ambient cloud-wash sound that is most
commonly associated with real-time looping.  In other words, music from
the same basic genre of ambient/atmospheric/abstract whatever.  

If people really want looping to catch on, they're going to have to come
to terms with the cutting edge of what today's technology can do. 
They'll have to actually learn the techniques needed to play this stuff,
both in the sense of knowing the technical makeup of the gear, and the
physical task of executing the operations.  They'll very likely have to
present the stuff in a musical genre that isn't built upon a foundation
of being background music.  They'll have to come up with a performance
presence and technique that integrates the looper into a compelling
presentation (anyone who hasn't seen the video footage of Jaco doing his
thing from the "Shadows And Light" concert tape needs to check this out
ASAP).

And most of all, they're going to have to have a thoroughly compelling
musical statement to make, that transcends and translates beyond the
apparatus of how the music is made.  In short, after you've dealt with
all the issues above, you've still gotta have something to say.

Gentlemen (and ladies), start your engines...

--Andre LaFosse
http://home.earthlink.net/~altruist