Support
Looper's Delight
|
Support |
|
|
Oh boy... :-| Hi Matthias, Matthias Grob wrote: > We have discussed such issues a lot, but somehow did not conclude. So > please lets do this now, to get rid of the question and form a > position in society, for the benefit of all! Already, I have a big problem with this idea. The moment that everyone on this list is of one mind and has one single consensus about what they do is the moment that we lose our diversity of opinins and approaches. If you look at what's happened with Jazz music, for instance, you'll get an idea of why this bothers me. The Ken Burns documentary is a perfect example of what I'm talking about: you have an extremely long and in-depth film that's skewed towards a certain point of view - the Wynton Marsalis/Stanley Crouch school of "neo-classicism." The material that fits THEIR definition of what Jazz "is" gets lots of coverage, while the stuff that doesn't fit their vision of what it can or cannot be included gets brushed aside. So you end up with a 10-volume anthology, with volume 10 of that anthology starting in 1961 and ending in 2000, with many, many immportant and pivotal artists being either glossed over or completely ignored because they don't fit in with the Marsalis/Crouch worldview. Now, I think it would be TRAGIC if an attempt to promote looping to the general world felt it was necessary to narrowly define what does and does not allow for inclusion, based upon aesthetic judgements rather than technical application. > To define it we have a little harder time. > The most important for this may be its class: Looping is a subset of > what? We discussed it a lot and found it is not a Style, not a Tool, > not a Religion, not a way of life... but maybe an Artform? How about this? "Loop based music essentially involves the repetition of audio samples, or loops. From that basic premise looping moves off in numerous directions, encompassing a wide range of techniques for building, manipulating, and using loops. The technique crosses many musical boundaries and appears in a wide range of musical styles and genres." This is from Kim's intro on the front page of Looper's Delight, and it's about as inclusive and applicable of a description as I can imagine. Just like he says: numerous directions, lots of different approaches. Nothing that circumscribes or pigeonholes looping into a specific niche or aesthetic territory. > Recently Kevin of Gibson suggested to create a site about the Artform >Looping. > So we need to know whether its an artform and what we want to include > in that site. > While LD is completely open and can include anyone who is interested, > the new sites content and aim shall be defined in order to make > evident to press and public what they can expect as Looping. > By this we gain a lot more attention as several citations express below. If you're trying to reach the general public, my very serious, fervent request would be to make it as wide-reaching as possible - flaunt the diversity of STYLES and GENRES that can (and DO) use looping. The more possible "areas" that are showcased, the more potential you have for sparking a newcomer's curiosity. This also makes sense from a marketing point of view. There are people out there who don't care about ambient music or new age, but are really into rap or industrial. If they realize that real-time looping can be used in the kinds of music they're interested in, they might buy a looper. If, on the other hand, they are sent the message that real-time looping is a seperate style of music, OTHER than the forms they already know and love, they might very well spend that money on a regular sampler of keyboard instead. Because the sampler or keyboard is marketed as being a tool which can be used to play various kinds of music... whereas the looper was marketed as a seperate musical style of its own. > As you see below, I even tend to exclude some other "art forms" that > may use looping tools, but use their own label, like Minimal Music > and Rap for example. I think that's really, really sad. Why draw lines in the sand? Why choose who you want to allow into the community based on stylistic orientation? Why can't a Hip-Hop artist who uses a JamMan be included? For that matter, why can't hip-hop in GENERAL be included? Because it uses pre-recorded sounds? What happens if someone uses a Repeater to play back re-recorded loops from a card? If it isn't in real time, is it no longer "loop music"? Does hip-hop have the wrong kind of stylistic or aesthetic association? I've spent much, much more time in my life listening to Public Enemy and NWA than to Robert Fripp. It took me a very long time to figure out how I could access hip-hop ideas of sound with an Echoplex, because I kept thinking of real-time looping as a way to make ambient soundscapes. Once I stopped associating the EDP with a specific musical result, and started thinking of it as an open-ended instrument without any stylistic baggage, I found myself much more intrigued by it. It's specifically for that reason that I've logged more hours on my Echoplex over the last 12 months than I did in the previous 6 years combined. > This is in general only, because those stiles > can still be executed the loop way, and then maybe called Loop-Rap or > so, but if any repetitive music is loop music, we probably dont get > anywhere. Why don't we get anywhere? Wouln't that encourage people who are into Hip-Hop to check it out if they realize there's more to real-time looping than ambient experimental guitar music with no recurring sections? (And isn't the idea of "loop-based rap" incredibly redundant?) > In other words: We naturally show connections to Mantras, for > example, but we dont say Mantras = Loop Music, because the public may > become confused and the Indians may disagree ;-) Why not say that "mantras" are one element of interest for certain particular subsets of looping? > And if it is an Artform, what is the caracteristic of it? The characteristic is a repeating piece of audio that, in its default state, loops over and over again. That's the common thread between everybody on this list, I think. It isn't the style of music we play, it's the type of instrument we play. > As Andre points out, not even Repetition seems to be a characteristic >any more? It doesn't HAVE to involve repetition. There are ways of using the basic principle of an audio loop to create music which doesn't repeat (or at least doesn't do so in an obvious way). > Or could it be that Andre+co discovered another artform? I don't think of what I do as a different artform; I think of it as my particular way of playing a particular instrument. If somebody asked me what kind of music I play right now, I'd tell them it's a mix-up of hip-hop, IDM, glitchcore, and funk. "Turntablist guitar" sums it up pretty well. I certainly wouldn't tell them I play "loop music." > I just made a search at LD for "artform" and "art form" and it seems > that Andre LaFosse was the first one to use the term Jan 97 in: " > loopers meet @namm" Man, even back then I had no life! ;) > ...there are plenty of people like myself whose > introduction to looping came primarily via Fripp's work, so there's a bit > of a tendency to think that looping as a serious improvisational form > began with _No Pussyfooting_ and the live application thereof with the > _Exposure_ "non-tour;" I've been guilty of this sort of thinking myself. > Thanks to this list, I'm becoming more and more aware of the history > behind the art form all the time. Well, I think this is a perfect example of the danger of pigeonholing looping into a particular stylistic or aesthetic area. If I'd known I could play hip-hop or IDM with an Echoplex and a guitar back then, I would have delved into it much more deeply. > LD veteran Bryan Helm in "the proof of the pudding....", 4 Feb 1997 > > 4-Will this group of players feel the need to congregate together > at some point in the future to share performances and information, > and to solcit industry to makes it's pitch and contribute to the > cost of such an event? An eerily astute observation from Mr. Helm! > 5- Should we be telling anyone about this kind of music in that they > are already listening to loops in many aspects of modern audio > production and could care less about the artform. If I'm correct in interpreting this as saying, "People already listen to loop-based music all the time, so why should they be inclined to take more notice of it just because it's in real time," then I agree 1000%. > Paul Mimlitsch said 8 Jan 1999 in "Looping Catching on?": > Limiting > titles such as Loopist, Guitarist, Stick Player etc., while fine for >targeting > an audience, can become constricting. For the listener they raise > expectations which may not be realized, for the musician they can be real > detriments to growth. Agree completely; I think this is what I've been trying to say all along here. > Then Andre laFosse: > >Hip-hop is loop music. Trance is loop music. House is loop music. > >Fela Kuti's Afrobeat is loop music. Alanis Morrisette singing over > >breakbeats is loop music. "Wild Thing" is loop music. The scads of > >third-rate major label bands whose parts are played once and then > >cut-and-pasted into Pro Tools is loop music. > > I start do doubt that. If we try to include all music that repeat, > looping ends up defining nothing and is not usefull. I disagree completely here. It doesn't define "nothing," it defines music based on loops! Hip-hop and Afrobeat are much, much larger influences in what I'm doing now than ambient music or new age is. I'm SURE there are people out there using these influences in other kinds of ways as well. > It does not look > like the Hip-hop will be part of the loop festivals, nor do I feel > that they join the comunity much or call themselves loopers. There are a few DJ's on this list who crop up from time to time. I think there are more who drop in for brief periods of time, but then feel like there isn't room for them to do their thing here. > So why > would we force them? It may be a different comunity, even if they use > the same machines as we do - sometimes. Describing hip-hop as a very viable example of loop-based music isn't going to force any rapper to go to a Santa Cruz looping festival. But choosing to DEFINE hip-hop as something "other than" or "outside of" or "a different community than" looping is forcing people OUT. I can't think of a single good reason for doing so, and the proposition makes me very uncomfortable. > and again Andre: > >The dominant point of reference for how looping tends to be approached > >as an instrumental craft, even today, is frequently (though certainly > >not always) rooted in the tape-loop or long-delay-line paradigms. But > >with the tools that are available today, it doesn't have to be that way. > > It doesn't have to be hypnotic, it doesn't have to be inward-looking, > >it doesn't have to be droney, and it doesn't even have to be repetitive. > > sure, but then if it has nothing to be, what is it? A tool. An instrument. A technology. A technique. A way of making music. NOT a style or genre of music. > Right, Looping has been that texture thing and now evolved. For a lot of people, it STILL is the "texture thing." Why not include that as an important and visible aesthetic area in which the tool/technique of looping is used? > And the minimal music evolved into a different direction and now does > not call itselve looping music any more, so we may not include it > really. But if the roots of minimalism are based in loop-based technologies, wouldn't it be all the more valuable to have a strong historical account of it? > Looping can evolve more in directions we dont know yet, and then > still be called looping or gain a new name. Agreed completely. Which is why I feel it's so important to NOT draw lines in the sand and choose who we want to include or exclude. Here are some quick examples to close with: - David Torn plays Repeater and Echoplex and PCM42 on records by David Bowie and Tori Amos. Are Bowie and Tori now making "loop music," or are they examples of rock artists whose music makes use of looping? - Jon Brion plays live drums, piano, and guitar one by one into a Repeater, to build up arrangements for his pop songs in real time. He does this in front of standing-room-only audiences every Friday night. Is Jon Brion playing "loop music," or his he a pop singer/songwriter who's using looping within that style? - Teo Macero uses tape loops on Miles Davis albums. Eberhard Weber and Jan Garbarek work with delay lines. Joshua Redman plays his sax into a Repeater to layer multiple-voice ostinatos in concert. Are they playing "loop music," or are they playing jazz? - Ritchie Hawtin uses a Repeater. Is he playing "loop music" or Techno? - Peter Gabrial credits himself with JamMan on his new album. Should his latest CD be filed under "loop music"? Well... I think it's possible that a new web site dedicated to spreading the word about looping could help open up a lot of people's conceptions about how the technology can be used. I also think that, if it's handled in the wrong way, it could turn a lot of people off, if it has a narrowly-defined, exclusionist sense of who is and is not invited to the party. I personally would much rather see the former option come to pass. All said with much respect, Matthias, as I hope you would understand anyway. But this is a very big step you're talking about, and I think it would be utterly tragic to handle it in the wrong way. Anyway. --Andre LaFosse http://www.altruistmusic.com