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At 11:43 AM 5/27/2003, Geoff Smith wrote: > > So when you try to claim Live Looping as a genre, I'm still lost as to >what > > you are talking about. I really don't see how regular music listeners >can > > understand it either. Certainly you can explain to them about the >looping > > techniques and devices the musicians are using, and maybe they will >find > > that a bit interesting in an educational way. But that isn't >describing the > > music, and ultimately people go to listen to music not the musician's > > technique. >When i listen to the music of Live-Looping (there I am calling it that >right >from the start) I genuinely here huge similarities between the artists I >have talked about. Is that because you are listening to only a narrow subset of Loopers, or do you actually detect some common characteristics across all of the wildly different musicians using looping? If your source listenings are what you list in your paper and mention here, I'm afraid it sounds like the former to me. >For this to work I only consider artists who use a Live-Looping device as >a >major part of what they do. To illustrate why... drum and bass doesn't >sound >the way it does simply because someone adds a speed up drum beat, its a >full >engagement with a form of music. Drum and Bass also doesn't sound the way it does because people use cubase and fruity loops to create it. So why do you think this "Live Looping" genre is defined by the tools, when drum and bass is not? Why not by specific musical characteristics as you just semi-explained d&b is defined? >This is true of Live-Looping for someone to >be considered part of the genre they must make heavy use of the >Live-Looper, >i.e. it can not be just an arbitory addition or effect. that goes back to the Trumpet players are in the Trumpeter genre example.... I still don't see how the tools used to create can define a genre. If somebody tells me to come to their Trumpet concert I don't know if they are going to be playing mariachi or bebop or marching band. I would be really annoyed if I stayed home because I was fearing marching band and it turned out to be mariachi. If they said "mariachi" right from the start, I'd be there. second point: the problem is not that we need to restrict things to say this is a music that only makes "heavy use of the Live-Looper" (presumably meaning the device in this case rather than the musician). The problem is that even once you have made that restriction, the music that results still covers such a wide range as to be impossible to categorize together. It is too broad a term to be of useful meaning to the listener. And as Rick claims, what is is. "Looping" and even "Live Looping" have used for a long time to refer to a set of tools, instruments, and techniques employed by many musicians creating many types of music. It's already done. To suddenly try to call one style of music "Live Looping" today causes confusion and conflict. >Okay so considering people who do this... >If I went to http://www.looproom.com/index_engl.php >and downloaded music by Rick, Matthius, and Per Boysen (which I have done >incidently) I would argue that the music has a lot in common as a >listening >experience. (By the way, I'm really looking forward to hearing the collaborations between them myself.) The tracks on that particular site do seem a little similar, which again leads me to wonder if you have relied on too few sources to support your thesis. It seems like a rather small subset of all the things I've heard done with looping. (it is a sample of only 3....) However, in many other ways these three seem quite different. So, I'm curious. What specifically, are the similarities you hear that lead you to your conclusion? >The very function of looping a live instrumentalist has such a powerful >aesthetic effect that I would argue that this in most cases creates a >feeling of similarity between individual pieces or artists. ok, so go ahead and state the arguments you would make then. What are those similarities that create this "powerful aesthetic effect"? Maybe I'm an imbecile, but when I think of all the Live Loopers I've seen perform or listened to recordings of, I can't figure out how the resulting music all goes together in the same bin. They can be grouped together by the tools and techniques used to create, in the way Percussionists or Trumpeters can be grouped, but that's a musician thing. I don't see how the resulting music all goes together for the listener. >Looping creates form that is clear, >... and I believe it creates such a specific form that it ties music >together. If it is so specific, it should be easy to explain. Can you describe what that form is for me? >In the same way hip-hop covers so many different musicians etc. but it is pretty easy to describe the musical characteristics of hip hop music and its various sub genres, such that someone unfamiliar with it can recognize it and understand a bit of what is going on. That is because "hip hop music" refers to the audible characteristics in the result. >So Live-Looping can do the same, because there is a basic form that is >popular. is there? >Compare Terry Riley's 'Poppy No good etc' to Per Boysen's Saxophone pieces >and the similarities are obvious. Yes, remarkably so. Maybe a little too much so. :-) Terry Riley usually falls into the "Minimalist" genre, and even refers to himself as a Minimalist composer. Is there some reason that wasn't working? Why not just continue to say he is a minimalist, since it already seems to be a clear term that is reasonably understood. Perhaps we might say Per is a Minimalist also? Or perhaps Ambient? Listening to his music, those are the terms that come to mind. >It is perhaps harder to perceive when u >compare music made on different types of instruments, but i believe the >form >is still very clear. Take Eno and Fripp's 'No Pussyfooting' and listen to >that and imagine it was played on a saxophone.... you must see it!!!!! Again, you are talking about only one type of music that is often made with looping. You also refer to music made with very rudimentary looping techniques, from a time when the looping instruments themselves were too limited to be useful for a wide range of applications. Following your paper, this obviously causes you quite some difficulty in supporting your thesis when you get to later musicians using newer looping tools, and presumably would cause you even more difficulty if you considered a wider range of loopers covering different styles. Fripp and Eno's thing usually gets called "Ambient", which seems to work fine for most people. Is there something wrong with continuing to use that reasonably well understood term? It describes the musical result rather than the tools used, which is usually what listeners are after in a descriptive term about music. Both "Ambient" and "Minimalism" are types of music where the musicians have found looping techniques to be useful. However, looping is used in many other places as well. It seems you are lumping Ambient and Minimalism together because of the frequent use of loopers shared between them and then ignoring all other types of music made with the same looping tools. >Live-Looping like all music genres has progressed this can be heard on >Amy X >Neuburg' s 'tattoo' however the roots of the music can still be perceived they can? Amy's music doesn't sound even remotely like Terry Riley. Nobody would say they play the same type of music. She uses tremendous amounts of live looping though. Which one gets to be the Live Looper? >i.e. I can still hear the same fascination with looped live recorded >audio. Yes, you can also hear that same fascination in hip hop. Live hip hop often includes dj's live-looping beats by switching back and forth between two records. That's the classic hip hop sound. It is called Looping there too, and as far as I'm concerned it is looping. There are many dj's now doing this with actual loopers and turntables. I assume you don't consider hip hop as part of this "Live Looping" genre, even though it can include the same elements in its creation? >The form is just more fragmented now (thanks to new functions on the EDP. The tools follow what the musicians request. The EDP didn't cause anything to be fragmented (other than loops themselves). Neither did the Repeater or the JamMan or whatever. Musicians want to use looping in many ways, and ask for different features. The tools evolve to meet those musical needs. >Live-Looping music is characterized by the looping of live instruments in >recorded form, obvious yes but hugely significant as no other form of >music >does this. well, hip hop does it also as I just pointed out, so it seems to contradict your definition here. Unless we are now declaring hip hop as a sub-genre of our Live Looping genre. >If you play samples of music that aren't created live they have a >totally different feel....etc. Sequenced music is looping but is >characterised by looping synth sounds or sampled sounds and therefor has a >very different aesthetic effect. So is "Sequencer Music" another genre then? that seems unlikely. What if a piece music made live with a sequencer sounded exactly like another piece music made live with a Looper? Are they different genres due to the different tools used? Or same genre because they sound alike? >One of the few people who is maybe unrecognisable as a Live-Looper is >David >Torn on his recent work. This I believe is because of the huge range of >processing he uses, >I talk about this in my paper. Is that just because his music doesn't fit your thesis? Most people seem to see what David does as Looping, and his use of looping techniques is widely known. He employs the techniques all over the place quite obviously, and certainly does a lot of it live. So by your definition he must be a Live Looper. Yet his music sounds nothing like many other Live Loopers. Why not characterize all these as musicians using the same tools/instruments, but *not* playing the same type of music? I think your paper was doing just great when it was following that direction, but you got into difficulty when you tried to propose it all as a single musical genre. > So I set you the challenge name 5-10 prominent Live-Looping pieces that >you >feel cannot be characterised together. And I will respond. Chet Atkins - "Jam Man" (Grammy winning tune) DJ Radar - "Antimatter" (one turntable and a looper, djradar.com) Andre LaFosse - "Continuous Mix #2" (nu-skool andre) David Torn - "Busy Cutting Crap" from Splattercell:::Oah Howie Day - live set at www.kcrw.org Andre LaFosse - "Disruption Theory" from album of same name (old-skool andre) Terry Riley - Poppy Nogood and the Phantom Band that's seven, seems good enough. good luck! kim ______________________________________________________________________ Kim Flint | Looper's Delight kflint@loopers-delight.com | http://www.loopers-delight.com