Re: Mercedes and visual looping

[improv@peak.org (Dave Trenkel)]

>At 1:20 AM 3/29/97, Dr M. P. Hughes wrote:
>>Let's be fair; the JM is pretty solid peice of work.  If we're going for
>>car analogies, then the Obie is probably a Merc (E or S series) - high
>>prestige, and filled with gadgets that the owners insist they could never
>>live without - air cond, power steering.  The Lex is an Audi, BMW 
>3-series
>>or Volvo - a quality, refined dirving experience which will get you from 
>A
>>to B in style, if not necessarily pampered.  Finally, the boomerang is an
>>off-roader - fun to drive, not necessarily the smoothest ride, but with a
>>growing cult status.  Even if it can't do the things the others can, 
>there
>>are places it can go that leave the others behind.  After that, leave 
>Zoom,
>>Dod etc to fight it out for Ford.. :)
>
Let's see, does this mean that playing a loop over and over again on your
instrument is analogous to riding a bicycle?

>ohhhhhhh...... will it never end?    ;-)
>
As the person who, in a fit of foolish, late-night, caffiene-driven,
sleep-deprived silliness, made the original loopers as German cars analogy,
may I humbly apologize to the list? I'm sorry, I never dreamed it'd go this
far...

On to other stuff:

I was recently given a copy of Steinberg's X<>Pose to review for a mac
magazine. If you haven't heard of it, it's an animation program that
assigns MIDI notes to pict files and quicktime movies, and has a bunch of
effects and modifiers that are also controllable via MIDI notes and
controllers. It can be controlled in real time from a keyboard or from a
sequencer running in the background. While you could do similar stuff in
Director or MAX, X<>Pose makes it quite easy to do animations that are
synced to music. It could be great for doing live psychedelic light shows,
with a computer and projector.

 So I'm wondering if anyone out there has ever given much thought to the
idea of applying the looping esthetic to visuals. One thing that has struck
me about the looping music, and technologically-driven music in general, is
that it's just not very interesting to watch. As a performer, I don't
believe in the idea of faking some kind of physical intensity to make the
performance more theatrical, what Anthony Braxton calls "the tyranny of the
sweating brow", but at the same time, I recognise that (a) it's difficult
for people to make a connection between what the looping musician is doing
on the stage to what they are hearing, and (b) watching someone twiddle
knobs on a rack is just not visually exciting. So I'm thinking that there's
a way to create a visual analog for what we do musically, using something
like X<>Pose. Any thoughts? Anybody actually doing this kind of stuff?

Part of the reason I'm wondering about all this is that my band is doing an
hour-long cable TV show in about a month, and I'm looking for some
practical ways to add some visuals...

Also, about the West Coast Looping Live extravaganza, I'm still interested.
I could help organise something in Eugene or Portland, and, given enough
advance notice, could make it to the Bay Area to participate...

later,
Dave Trenkel




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Dave Trenkel, NEW EMAIL ADDRESS: improv@peak.org
self promotional web-site: http://www.peak.org/~improv/
"A squid eating dough in a polyethelene bag is fast
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                                     -Captain Beefheart
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