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hellos; loop and improv. theory
Hi! Uh, all you loopers are an interesting and informative, and
collegial bunch. I'm very happy to have stumbled into this site. I love
to make musical loops, or engage in any other kind of recursive musical
activity.
I can't remember who it was, but someone in your archive of
letters put
out a discussion-widening call for some general/philosophical loop
theory references. Here are a couple that I think are interesting:
"Circles" by Ralph Waldo Emerson ( I think its in a book called
something like "The collected Essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Volume 2");
"The Creative Circle: Sketches on the Natural History of Circularity,"
by Francisco Varela, in a book edited by Paul Watzlawick called "The
Invented Reality: Contributions to Constructivism." Varela is
co-inventor, with Humberto Maturana, of a big idea called autopoiesis.
Maturana and Varela are some of the philosophical founders of an
interesting field called enactive cognitive science. I have found the
work of Martin Heidegger relevant to expanding my understanding of any
improvisational activity. See his "Being and Time," especially the
passages on "thrownness." There is a great book by Hubert Dreyfus which
clearly comments on Heidegger's Being and Time, called
"Being-in-the-World." Dreyfus' book helps cut through some of the
opacity of Heidegger's. Another good book on improvisation is guitarist
Derek Humphrey's "On Improvisation" (I think that's what it is called.)
All these references are sent in the spirit of sharing in this
loopy
community process. Thanks for all of your teachings. Michael Preston