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Richard, you have led a most fascinating life! Dennis Leas ------------------- dennis@mdbs.com ----- Original Message ----- From: "Richard Zvonar" <zvonar@zvonar.com> To: <Loopers-Delight@loopers-delight.com> Sent: Monday, December 17, 2001 10:56 PM Subject: Re: FIRST LOOPING MEMORIES > At 2:51 PM -0800 12/14/01, Rick Walker (loop.pool) wrote: > > >How about a FIRST LOOOPING MEMORIES THREAD? > > To put this time line in perspective, I was born in 1946, started > elementary school in 1950, and graduated high school in 1963: > > Long before I ever became aware of looping per se as musical process, > I had a fondness for "weird" science fiction movie music and novelty > sound effects. I was a regular listener to the Big John and Sparky > radio program (1950-58), wherein Sparky's voice was a sped-up > recording, and marveled at the sounds of theremin and homebrew > electronics in films such as The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), > Invaders from Mars (1953), Forbidden Planet (1956). > > The first time I ever saw someone demonstrate double tracking was on > the Walt Disney TV show, circa 1955. Peggy Lee did the voices of the > two Siamese cats in Lady and the Tramp. Around this same time I used > to hear Les Paul and Mary Ford's jingles for Robert Hall clothes on > the radio. Lots of multitracking and tape-speed manipulation. > > When "The Witch Doctor" came out in 1958 I became a big fan of David > Saville, and after he released the "Chipmunk Song" later that year my > friends and I started playing around with tape recorders to imitate > chipmunk voices. But this was just a lot of fooling around; my only > real musical activity from childhood through high school was as a > singer. > > It wasn't until my late teens that I got serious. In 1965 I got > psychedelicized, both chemically and intellectually, and in 1966 I > started playing quasi-professionally in a band. Although the band > itself was strictly folk rock/psychedelic with guitars (a little > banjo), bass, drums, and vocals, my listening went far beyond. During > 1966-67 I rapidly got an education about electronic music, musique > concrete, and live electroacoustic music. Pieces that were essential > to this education were Steve Reich's "Come Out" (1966), Pauline > Oliveros's "I of IV" (1967), Luciano Berio's "Thema (Omaggio a > Joyce)" (1958). > > In 1969 I saw/heard John Cage and David Tudor perform with the Merce > Cunningham Dance Company and I composed my first multimedia piece for > film with four spatially-separated tapes of manipulated sounds. I > followed this with a film for three synchronized films, an adaptation > of an Ionesco play called "Salutation" for three actors. Many of the > techniques and compositional structures in this film were related to > musical loop processes, i.e. layering, repetition, multiple > perspectives on the same material. > > After a few years playing more straight-ahead rock music and making > more straight-ahead films I found myself in Santa Cruz in 1975 and > enrolled in Cabrillo College, where the music department had a New > Music Ensemble and an Audio Arts program directed by Bob Beede. Bob > had a Buchla Music Easel, and I started performing with him and a few > others. A lot of what we played was improvised "pattern music," > inspired by Terry Riley, Steve Reich, and other so-called > "minimalists." Our typical setup used a delay system made of two > 4-track reel-to-reel decks with the tape treaded between them. As I > recall, we didn't normally use regeneration on the signal path, so > the effect was mainly a straight canonic repetition with only a small > amount of feedback due to bleed into the microphones. Having four > tracks of tape allowed us to have individual delays routed to their > own speakers in a quad sound system. On one piece we had short delays > from two playback heads of Machine #1 in the front channels and long > delays from Machine #2 in the rear channels. > > I moved to San Diego in 1977 to attend graduate school, and for two > years I lived with Paul Dresher. Paul was very much into tape delay > systems at the time. At home he would play guitar through a funky > system in his bedroom, using a couple of cheap old tape decks, but in > the tape studio at school he was using the half-inch 4-track (with > erase head defeated) for some serious loopage. These experiments led > to the design of his 4-track performance looper, based on a modified > TASCAM 40-4 deck and a voltage controlled matrix mixer. A pair of > long metal arms supported a 20-30" tape loop, and in addition to the > stock Record and Playback heads, the tape deck had and additional > Playback head mounted at the halfway point in the loop. The outputs > and feedback paths from each of the three heads could be controlled > through the VCA mixer by means of a set of 24 foot pedals, and the > signal routing was done manually with push buttons. This system was > built in collaboration with music department technician (and > guitarist) Paul Tydelski. It is the system Bill Walker referred to > at the Kuumbwa gig in 1984. > > Partly because Paul was becoming such an obvious master at tape-based > looping, I followed different avenues. I spent a lot of hours working > with the school's Buchla 100 Series modular system, which had four > analog step sequencers. I also did a lot of work with tape loops as > part of some of my tape pieces, but most of the time this was used to > prolong individual transient sounds from percussion instruments and > the like. I also used some loops in the backing tape for the Diamanda > Galas piece "Panoptikon" (1982), turning the sound of her ring > modulated voice into a huge chugging engine from hell. > > > -- > > ______________________________________________________________ > Richard Zvonar, PhD > (818) 788-2202 > http://www.zvonar.com > http://RZCybernetics.com > http://www.cybmotion.com/aliaszone > http://www.live365.com/cgi-bin/directory.cgi?autostart=rz >