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Looper's Delight
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Hey there Richard, Thanks for the information regarding the ACF; I looked at the site and it's definitely an intriguing orgnanization. I certainly concur that there are a lot of very worthwhile and viable "scenes" within LA, and that it often takes a bit of effort to seek them out. At the same time, though, I can't help but feel that it doesn't really address the idea (such as it is) of an LA "looping scene," you know? That, to me, is the fundamental issue of the thread - a guy thinking about moving out here to be part of the "big California loop scene," and the underlying question of, "Well, how much of a loop scene is there, really?" So the ACF, to me, doesn't really deal with the issue of a "looping scene" as such, because it's based (as far as I can tell) around areas of musical style and genre (in a general sense) rather than areas of musical technique. What if someone wants to present a loop based approach that's totally improvised and doesn't involve composition? What if it owes more to dance and DJ culture than the academic or "new music" world? What if someone's using amazing Repeater technique in a live rock band? The ACF doesn't seem to offer an outlet for these sorts of issues. And I also think this ultimately gets back to the age old issue of "Is looping a style of music, or is it a technique that crosses different styles?" For instance, just a few minutes ago a fellow posted a question about Jon Brion to the list, and felt the need to qualify his inquiry by saying "While he is not explicitly avant garde, his looping chops are impressive." That says a lot right there, you know? The fact that people might tend to equate looping with any particular genre or style of music is potentially problematic, I think. (And probably a huge obstacle towards truly creating a scene that can cross stylstic boundaries...) Anyway, this has been on my mind quite a bit, of late... Best wishes, --Andre LaFosse http://www.altruistmusic.com Richard Zvonar wrote: > > At 3:13 PM -0700 6/3/02, Andre LaFosse wrote: > > >Well, let me give you my own perspective on the "action," so to speak, > >from my vantage point in Los Angeles: > > > >Los Angeles is infamous for being fragmentary and disconnected, so > >it's no surprise that cultivating a sense of looping community here > >has been difficult...the scene here is very fragmentary, sporadic in > >its convergence, and only just starting to emerge as something with > >tangible structure and order to it, thanks to the efforts of a few > >people who have been working away at it for years. > > I've lived in Los Angeles since 1986, and for the first fourteen > years of that I felt completely disconnected from any sort of scene. > That doesn't mean that there was none, just that it took a great deal > of effort to find whatever there might have been and I didn't bother. > Then two years ago, as part of some personal creative renewal, I > joined the newly formed LA chapter of American Composers Forum. I > started doing volunteer work for the Forum and made some new friends > who were also keen on building a creative community. It worked out > pretty well, and now we have a viable organization with regular > get-togethers, Composer Salons, professional development workshops, > etc. We even have a performance calendar (both on paper and on the > Web) so there's a central information source for performance > information. A group of us are in the midst of organizing some > technology programs. > > Check us out at: <http://www.composers.la> > -- > > ______________________________________________________________ > 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