Godel, Escher, Bach and Headrush

["K. Douglas Baldwin" <dbaldwin@suffolk.lib.ny.us>]

"Godel, Escher, Bach" by Douglas Hofstadter is profound, and should be
required reading for serious loopers. It has it's hard-to-grasp parts, and
as often as not you'll read with pencil and paper in hand to either try one
of the problems presented or look up a book referenced therein, but what a
wonderful ride! I've become an amateur math addict from that book, and I
write strict canons (looping melodies) for my guitar students partly from
it's concepts.
    By the way, I also picked up "The Mysticism of Sound and Music" by
Hazrat Inayat Khan on the advice of fellow loopers recently. Excellent so
far. For those seeking practical applications of musical instruction in
everyday life, try "The Listening Book" by W.A. Mathieu.
    I began testing the Akai pedals last night, including the Headrush. A
thoroughly wack batch of boxes! Immediate impression: Phaser is cool, Wah 
is
too complicated with too few colors for most folks, Distortion has 
excellent
vol/drive pedal but 12AX7 tube and diode distortions are too much alike
(imagine that!), and the lovely Headrush is definitely a max-bang-per-buck
pedal if you're willing to hang with it and grok it's arcane switching
ill-logic and poorly translated instructions. More news at it break-dances.