Re: An Open Apology to Kim

[Mark Hamburg <mark_hamburg@baymoon.com>]

on 5/30/03 6:12 PM, Kim Flint at kflint@loopers-delight.com wrote:

> Non-musicians don't care very much what instruments are used or
> how they are played, they care about the musical result they hear and
> whether they like that or not.

Why did Windham Hill put out Piano Sampler albums and Guitar Sampler albums
(including one with David Torn), etc? Why does my father like jazz but
dislike trumpet and saxophone? The choice of instruments and tools affects
the sound which affects the reactions of even non-musicians.

It's a continuum. Andre LaFosse and Bill Walker don't sound particularly
alike, but they sound more like one another than they sound like many
non-looping guitarists. Now, yes the looping community also includes people
like Richard Zvonar and John Whooley who sound very unlike Andre or Bill
(though their work has its own set of similarities), but jazz also covers a
broad spectrum of individual styles. Using a looper tends to lead toward
certain playing styles and certain approaches to composition. These get
biased by other individual factors and sometimes you get some real
surprises, but the surprises don't completely invalidate the ability to 
have
some expectations about what one might hear when someone is looping.

Now, if everyone comes to expect that Live Looping means doing strange
things with green vibrators, then there is a bit of a marketing problem.

Mark