implied rhythms

[sarajanes@mdcs.com (Sarajanes)]

                                  Somewhere in the midst of considering 
    issues addressed in E. Cook's thoughts on drumming with loops, and 
    the more recent "implied music" post, I found myself uneasy with the 
    seeming dichotomy of these two texts as they related to the 
    description of musical events. The "linguistics & semantics" game 
    has always annoyed me as a person who plays music by ear, and who 
    could not stomach the scholasticism that musical instruction and 
    theory always seem to be anchored in. Hence I stop lessons, drop out 
    of college, and rock and roll. However real freedom of musical 
    expression does not arrive for me until I discover looping in the 
    late 70's. Finally I can access the tonal and textural powers of 
    an ensemble with out the rampant breakdown in communication and 
    spirit that was always present for me in group musical situations. 
    Better still was the freeing notion that a sense of rhythm was 
    always presenting itself within the loop itself as opposed to some 
    pre-meditated calculations between the "rhythm section" and the rest 
    of the group. Gee...not a team player, am I? Anyway this "systems" 
    generated sense of rhythm within the loop made precise and imprecise 
    polyrhytms available to me for the first time, no mean trick for a 
    guy as white as I am. Even after looping for 18 years now I truly 
    love to find a loop of increasingly stammered and clutching sounds 
    becoming its own "groove" as it where. Since outside (the loop) 
    counterpoint can be reallly powerful, given a good loop to play 
    with, the draw to find a synchronous relationship to the sounds 
    within the loop is overwhelming . The contrast between an 
    acccompanied loop versus a solo loop is really clearly heard if 
    you listen to any "Frippertronics" work with a lead non-loop melody, 
    such as "Evening Star", and compare it to solo-loop work such as 
    "Let The Power Fall", the differences are major. So it's cool to 
    "play along" as it where, but for me at least the notions expressed 
    in "drumming with loops" seem far less viable than the plan of 
    attack presented in "implied music". I know "different strokes for 
    different folks" and all but it reminded me of an experience I had 
    11 years ago this week when I was attending my second Guitar Craft 
    course. In the midst of a group discussion concerning composition 
    and performance issues, I found myself asking Mr. Fripp why we had 
    to endure this endless parade of mathmatics to access our musical 
    aims. His stern and steadfast reply was that "it wasn't mathmatics, 
    it was arithmatic!" I'm still just looking for music, and I have 
    always believed that along with rhythm, it will present itself. 
 
                                          Bryan Helm 
                                         " Looper, Bombastic Ranter 
                                           & Musical Fascist"