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Looper's Delight
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Hmmmm, Without a doubt, my best experiences as a player/performer (looping or non) have always been in the entirely unprepared and unpremeditated category. But that hasn't stopped me from trying (upon occasion) to challenge myself to do a set piece - to play an actual "composition" if you will. But these occasions seldom work out very satisfactorily in front of an audience for some reason. I am almost always left with the feeling of wishing I hadn't even gone there. I think the stress of "trying to get it exactly right" and the fear of looking foolish combine to sabotage me almost every time I attempt to do a set piece. But I think I keep trying because I feel like it's something I should be able to do (for some reason). I guess its an area of difficulty I want to conquer and master. Kenny Werner's book "Effortless Mastery" addresses a lot of this. The key (for me) seems to be to play as if I don't care if I sound good or bad - to just play with a will, a conviction and an authority based on the gift of music itself . . . to play like a child. Personally, that's rather hard to do, I am obsessively self-critical and neurotically insecure under the best of circumstances. But I keep working on that too. As far as using "live" or canned loops go . . . it's a non-issue. I have done premeditated totally "live-looping" pieces . . . and whole sets. And I have also done gigs with mixture of canned loops and live loops that were entirely the sort of unpremeditated, child-at-play improvisation mentioned above. Gee, what's in the box? What will this button do? It's all in the mind . . . not the machinery. Best, Ted