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hi all. ive mostly kept quiet here, checking-in on the thought provoking philisophical sides. stuff built up in my mind, and i pushed myself to share my personal explorations, inspite of insecurity and naivete... yes, Andre C., i was thinking nearly the same thing last night, ex: is documentary [film/making] a genre or a process? is it more one than the other? is it an approach that can be applied to any style of film making (ex: documentary horror romantic commedy)? why do we name creative ideas and approaches? is it to 'sell' a form? (i use the word 'sell,' not necessarilly as in for financial gain, but also as a notion of disseminating ideas: a simple way of getting people to accept/'buy into' your idea without actually experiencing it. ex: "i play garage") if we say that naming is a means of distinguishing forms, can we not say that distinguishing from one thing is a means of 'selling' another? artists whose work is frequently labled and categorized by others, sometimes become frustrated by this static compartmentalization of their dynamic creativity. perhaps it is because such naming/branding gives greater value to the form rather than the creative spirit which the form is meant to serve. most artists come to acknowledge that a 'perfect form' for an artist is the worst form for another artist, and what is at one time a 'perfect form' will, at another time, be the 'worst form'. [this is explained in wonderful, agonizing detail by kandinsky in his essay "on the question of form" in the "blaue reiter"] is everyone who uses a pen or pencil, a writer? surely not, there are painters, architects, accountants, etc., and all their subdivisions... who each use a pencil for a diffierent purpose. and i think its safe to assume pens and pencils have been used for countless other non-writing/non-drawing tasks (ex: as hair-bun pin). i say someone is a banker or an abstract painter, or a jazz musician because that is a way of communicating this individual's skill that they sell, share, or contribute with some sense of purpose. not all 'loopers' are musically oriented. and so, the name 'live looping' is a term made-up of general words with a specialized meaning (however general!) to certain musicians and audiences (ex: similarly as the word 'dominant' is a general word, with specialized meaning for certain musicians). semantically, the term 'live looping' seems about as specific as saying 'prepared penciling' or 'prepared penning' --probably even less specific, because from some of the threads ive read here, the notion of 'looping' is broader than just a musical or even a sonic concept, and often reflects some personal philosophy. by saying 'live looping,' one can refer to looping visual, kinesthetic, auditory... i mean, a massage is a 'live looping.' ... our life: composed of loops composed of loops and so on... (eat/sleep/sex -and each a loop in itself). does live looping need electronic devices?: is minimalist music considered live looping? what about jazz standards that loop the changes? (an aesthetic that might be said to come from jazz's african roots, as tribal cultures --not just in africa--, usually are concerned with maintaining a balanced cyclical union with the earth, rather than the developing, expanding and conquering, typical of western civ's idealism... which goes hand-in-hand with aristotle's notion that a story or argument must have a begining, middle and an end. in contrast to tribal cultures' frequent cyclical, nature myths.) naming a creative medium in a way that helps describe a fundamental characteristic of this medium of expression, is challenging for the dynamic creative spirit because one has to decide on where one draws their limits on his/her creative medium? since most --if not all-- people on this list are specifically concerned with live looping of sound (occassionaly in tandem with visual or other forms of loops) rather than live looping of car tires, most --if not all-- might also be satistfied to categorize (but not brand) their loop forms as "live sonic looping." [rather than just 'live looping' which is non-descript, except in its specialized definition -which is a 'specialized vague'!!] such a lable, however accurate or not, probably would not help market the creative product because it isnt a catchy name like 'rock 'n roll'. but even lables which are descriptive without being unreasonably limiting and preserve some of the catchy alliteration of 'live looping', probably wouldnt feel or sound right to most, ex: 'sentient sonic sequencing;' 'sentient sonic stringing' abrv: 'stringing!;' [sentient=live, stringiing=string or series-patterns=loops and also many of you seem to play string inst.] a name of a form should capture the spirit that the form serves. a name like 'Jazz,' when it was first used to market some club's guest band, was successful precisely because no-one knew what it was or what to expect (--what better listener is there than one without expectations?) maybe an onomatapea on the lines of pepsi can both capture the spirit that runs through your form, be discriptive and good for business? but then, who on this list uses a similar medium to express a similar creative spirit? if each individual has a unique creative spirit, even if expressed through a similar form... maybe you can just name your creative spirit rather than the form... like naming a baby (do you name the spirit or the body of your child? in some cultures (ex: native american), an individual's name changes according to significant events in the person's experience), a baby is usually named well before personality has formed, developed and matured... ultimately you want your art, like your child, to speak on its own, have a life of its own... so you can say "i play billy-bob!" is there a movement? if so, maybe the children of a movement share family name! maybe trying to come up with a most effective, and marketable name could be compared to writing a pop hit: it would seem to conform to a pattern, but with no apparent logic. "Reality TV" -is that a genre, a process, a movement!? does it have anything to do with reality? how, if at all, is it related to documentary form? ...Sentient Sonic Cycling. or just Sonic Cycling. ...or 'Living Loops' -so that the 'live' modifies 'loop' -connoting a dynamic art form, not simply static 'loops' that exists in a dynamic, 'live' world. thanks for the stimulating posts and the opportunity to share, dani oore _________________________________________________________________ MSN Premium with Virus Guard and Firewall* from McAfeeŽ Security : 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?pgmarket=en-ca&page=byoa/prem&xAPID=1994&DI=1034&SU=http://hotmail.com/enca&HL=Market_MSNIS_Taglines