RE: strange loops

["MIKO" <m-i-k-o@attbi.com>]

Don't play with the gender of sound in that way.  It might cause the
Repeater to sputter and burst into flame.

-----Original Message-----
From: Goddess [mailto:thefates@earthlink.net]
Sent: Friday, November 01, 2002 11:41 PM
To: loopers-delight@loopers-delight.com
Subject: Re: strange loops


  Hi, thanks for such an interesting post.   While I haven't looped
specifically in the terms you mentioned yet, there are a couple of things I
like to do which evolve loops musically in addition to evolving using sonic
textures.   One is to begin a loop in a certain key, or with the illusion
of a certain key, and then gradually introduce certain specific notes which
give the loop a dissonant quality, and then bring out the tone of a new
key, resolving the perceived dissonance.
  Another idea I like is to bring out different  modal ideas from a loop
either by evolving the loop, soloing different ways along with it, or by
adding to it, and then subtracting again, and then going somewhere else...
  I particularly enjoy the former with vocal looping, as I, like quite a
few others here, it seems, really like the Lux Eterna dissonant vocal idea.
 Anyway, thanks again for your post.   Have a wonderful evening!...

Smiles,

CQ

At 02:18 AM 11/2/02 +0100, you wrote:
>Hey Loopers,
>
>has anyone of you experience with what Douglas Hofstadter calls "strange
>loops" in a musical sense?
>Hofstadter uses the mentioned term in his book Gödel, Escher, Bach for
>strange recursions of any kind. He starts by giving an example of canons 
>by
>JS Bach which progress chromatically, i.e. when one voice of the canon has
>been played once, it ends one tone higher and is thus repeated the second
>time transposed, and so on...
>
>While working on my next heavily loop-based album "Sauflieder Band 2:
>Extreme Ambient Terror", I got the idea that the inherent pitch-shifting
>possibilities of the Repeater would make it easy hardware-wise to do this
>kind of thing.(anyone else can of course do exactly the same what I'm 
>about
>to describe using another looper and an external pitch shifter...)
>
>*** WARNING !!! LONG MUSIC THEORY BABBLE AHEAD ***
>
>One of my studies is based on a harmonic progression which, starting in 
>the
>key of C, goes like this:
>
>Cm D7 Fm6 G7 Cm7 Ebm7 F#7 F
>
>taking a look at the functions of these chords in a C scale (and ignoring
>for one moment 7ths and 6ths et al), we have:
>
>t DD s D t Dp DS(sub) S
>(t tonic, d dominant, s subdominant, p parallel, g antiparallel, sub
>substitution, uppercase=major, lowercase=minor))
>
>This works ok as a strange plagal turnaround (which GF handel did like a
>lot) in C key. But if we take a look at the last chords and assume for one
>moment we're in Bb minor, this becomes:
>
>...dd s DD(sub) D
>
>...so we can append here the start of the loop transposed two semitones
>downward. But there's more: Assume we have the loop running in reverse, 
>the
>first chord is F, so let's assume for one moment we're in the key of F, 
>the
>functions of the second half (= the first half reversed) become:
>
>...DD t sG d
>
>which is ok. But if we again do the analysis in the key of G (which is
>incidentially F transposed one step up), we get:
>
>...T dG D s
>
>...and again, we can append the start (=the end) of the loop transposed 
>two
>semitones upwards.
>
>So we have a loop which we can either run as is, and it makes sense
>harmonically, or we can "think differen" and just pitch down two steps for
>each round, and after seven rounds, we're back in the key of C. And if we
>change our mind halfway, we just kick in reverse, and progress back up.
>
>
>Another step I took was using polyphonic lines which tend to transpose
>themselves (in the Bach way) and even make sense when combined in 
>different
>transpositions. Take the following passive theme (=a bassline):
>
>C Bb D C E Ab C
>
>This is based on a wholetone scale, so the conventional harmonic 
>functional
>theory does not apply in exactly the same way. Still, we have at the end a
>progression which is centered around Bb, and if seen reversed at the end
>(=the beginning) an ascending line leading to D. So again, we can use this
>loop to transpose down in one and up in the other direction. What makes 
>the
>use of the scale extra appealing is the fact that the notes of the scale
>stay the same no matter where I transpose, thus, I can use a steady active
>theme (=a melody) and have it running forwards and backwards and do
similair
>tricks.
>Of course, it is also interesting here to use an active theme which does
>similair things. One I worked out transposes upwards, and I have two 
>copies
>of it on adjacent tracks of the repeater, on of them recorded forward and
>one reverse. So the bassline and the melody either transpose in opposite
>directions (forward) or in unisono (backward). What makes this a little 
>bit
>tricky is the modus operandi: I currently use a FCB1010 to transpose the
>bassline to its 7 discrete levels and to switch into reverse, at the same
>time sending mute/unmute commands to the two tracks containing the melody
>forward and reverse, and use a keyboard to control the two melodies' 
>pitch.
>
>
>So much of thinking aloud for today...and here back to my question: has 
>any
>of you ever done anything similair, and perhaps is able to offer some
useful
>hints (either for use of equipment to realize this stuff, or, more
>importantly, hints for composing this way).
>
>And if you didn't do anything like this before...look forward to my next
CD!
>
>
>       Rainer
>
>Rainer Straschill
>Moinlabs GFX and Soundworks - www.moinlabs.de
>digital penis expert group - www.dpeg.de
>The MoinSound Archives - www.mp3.com/moinlabs
>
>
>


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