Re: Why...?

[Michael Carlson Music <music@carlsonarts.com>]

On Oct 21, 2011, at 10:45 PM, william middlemiss wrote:

> Why do you 'loop'? What got you started on this path?
My first electronic instrument was an Ensoniq ESQ-1.  It was one of  
the very first workstation synths.  You could record MIDI sequences  
and by pressing the button for the sequence it would play and loop it  
until you pressed the next button, and then it would move to that one  
and play it until you pressed another sequence's button.  I didn't  
really realize this was "looping," and never really performed in front  
of others, but enjoyed creating loops and playing them in sequence  
like that.

I saw the virtuosic guitarist Phil Keaggy in the early 80s looping in  
a live concert, probably with an EDP, and was completely blown away by  
what he was doing, and this always stuck in my mind as something I  
wish I could do.

A couple of years ago I started looping vocally as an extension of my  
a cappella recording habit of overdubbing my own voice to make  
arrangements of songs.  The challenge for me was figuring out a way to  
do it live on stage!

I think it takes a certain kind of ego to want to hear your own voice  
in many harmonic and contrapuntal layers.  (I once dubbed my looping  
system as an "ego enhancement device.")

Also, I got tired of trying to find singers that could perform at the  
level that I wanted/needed for vocal jazz.  So, I started expending  
energy arranging and singing as a solo vocal looping artist. And I  
fell in love with it and can't stop!

> Was it a mechanism for solo performance? to record a vamp?
Up 'til now, I've been more interested in arranging complete songs  
than simply improvising or singing over a vamp.  But now I'm thinking  
of simplifying my process and experimenting with ambient music.  I've  
never been really interested in ambient improvisation because it comes  
so naturally to me, and I tend to convince myself that something has  
to be hard to be worth doing. But I'm realizing the expressive  
possibilities, and hoping to glean some techniques from you all to  
make it more enjoyable and interesting to me, and therefore to an  
audience.

I may also explore looping as a song-writing medium as well.

> A compositional device, a new avenue of expression? (repetition as  
> compositional device?)
Yeah, I'm heading this way, I think.  I want to learn ways to use  
pitch shifting of different loops and tracks to create harmonic  
structures.

> An 'artistic statement' in itself? as if to say "I DONT NEED NO  
> STINKIN BAND!"
There's definitely an aspect of this - If I cant find singers to sing  
with me, then I will sing all the $%!#@ parts myself!

> With me, it's been all of the above, and I've jumped among 7 or 8  
> devices along the way.
>
> How about you?
I have pretty much exclusively used Mobius as a standalone platform  
for live looping, first on a PC laptop, and now on my Macbook Pro with  
a Firewire interface and cheap microphone, sometimes using some  
compression and a tube pre-amp.  Recently, I have begun using a  
VoiceLive floor unit for harmonizations, octave drop for bass, and  
other effects.

However, I have recently started to use my iPhone to loop with an iRig  
interface.  I may be moving that direction, processing the vocals  
first with the VoiceLive, once I simplify my looping process and move  
towards ambient.  I dunno. We'll see.

Peace and adventure,
Michael Carlson (TripleOhNine)