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Looper's Delight
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Afternoon, Stig! "Liebig, Steuart A." wrote: > ** hmmm. to me it comes down to: how do you use the looper? maybe that >has more to do with the need to have feedback or not. Agree completely. The EDP recordings of mine I feel proudest of, both musically and technically, don't use feedback at all (except for one fade-out at the end of a 43-minute improv). > ** i think the key here is great music. i would ask why is it >"important"? if people are making good/great music with the tools at >hand, why must they be taught something different? (i say this in all >respect, just interested in the philosophy here.) I gotcha. For me, it's analagous to this: if someone's already making good music with major and minor chords/scales, then why should they learn about seventh chords or modes? Or, if someone's digging 4/4, then why should they learn odd meter? If someone likes swing, why should they check out be-bop? In all cases (including the looping angle), the issue I'm concerned with is for a musician to have a good sense of the current (and potential) scope of the tools they're using. And to have a sense of what they can potentially explore, if they're so inclined, and how these different possibilities could potentially steer their music making in different directions. If someone really likes harmony, and is curious about moving beyond major and minor triads, then I'd recommend that they play around with some seventh chords, get a sense of how those types of chords are sometimes employed in a functional sense, and then let them decide whether or not this new technique is something they want to implement into their own music. Likewise, if somebody really likes rhythm, but is looking for different kinds of grooves and feels beyond 4/4, I'd suggest that they try playing in 7 or 5, get comfortable with the way those meters feel, and see if they're inspired to make those sorts of areas a regular part of their work. Nobody HAS to learn how to use feedback, but for people who are interested in finding different ways of dealing with looping, it's a very big and very powerful foundation of that particular technique. Particularly for those folks who are interested in smooth, rounded sounds, and the idea of gradually morphing a texture into something else within the same basic loop, it's a very powerful tool. And historically, it's something that's been used in delay lines and tape loops in various ways for at least 30-some years. If we were talking about pitch-shifting or time-stretching or SUS-Unrounded Multiply or some other relatively new and specialized looping technique, that'd be one thing. But feedback is sort of like the power chord of looping, so to speak - it's a very basic, but very powerful tool with a serious historical pedigree. > I agree that it's important to encourage people to do their thing. But > I also adamently feel that it's JUST as important to approach an art > form from a respectfully critical point of view. < > > ** ah, so it's looping as discrete art form, not as means to an end. at >least that's how i read this? For me, it's looping as a real-time performative approach - something people can engage, sculpt, steer, shape, etc. I'm not speaking of it as an "art form" in the sense of a distinct style, but in the sense of a particular form of performative musical technique - a la the "art form" of playing the bass, or painting with watercolors, or what have you. It's sort of like how I'd recommend a guitarist to try a hollow-body "jazz box," as well as a telecaster, as well as a seven-string, Floyd Rose-equipped, two-humbucker Ibanex. All three of them are designed from different points of view. An aspiring jazz player probably won't need the Ibanez shred machine... but what if the "aspiring jazzer" really wants to do those humbucker-driven whammy-bar dive-bombs, and just hasn't been properly exposed to the right tools? > ** well, i guess that rick did in a way. he challenged the supposition >that one *had* to have feedback ;-) Very true! :) C ya, --Andre LaFosse http://www.altruistmusic.com