Re: LOOPING PHILOSOPHY (condensed)

[Dave Stagner <dstagner@icarus.net>]

On Tue, 12 Aug 1997, Michael Pycraft Hughes, PhD wrote:

> Yes, but a guitarst on his own is pretty imited.  There aren't many solo
> electric guitar peices worth listening to.  A DJ can tale the sounds of 
>an
> orchestra, a funk band and NY art-scronk and come up with something
> huge-sounding.  People playing musical instruments will always need to 
>use
> other players to fill out the sound - drummers, bassists, 
>thumb-pianists...
> which is almost what the DJ is doing.

I don't think the point of playing with other musicians is to fill out
MY sound.  Although I'm sure it wasn't your intent, it does come close
to another branch of guitar arrogance... the idea that the "rhythm
section" is there to provide a beat for the guitarist to jack off
over.  That's just dull to me.  I play guitar by myself most of the
time, out of pragmatism.  A big reason for looping is to be able to
accompany yourself.  

When I play with other musicians, it is for *collaboration*, not
support.  I play differently in response to the musicians I am playing
with.  If all that matters is a full sound, then I should play the
same with any random drummer.  But I don't.  I play differently with
every drummer, depending on how each one approaches the beat, makes
tone, creates fills, etc.  In other words, I play with other musicians
in order to create music I cannot create on my own... not for lack of
"fill", but for lack of the intellectual stimulation of other artists.

> > A 7 note thumb piano is not as capable of
> > expressing human emotion as a tenor saxophone.
> 
> A saxophone cannot sound as delicate and childlike as a thumb piano.

Each instrument expresses things other instruments cannot express.
And a good musician can express unique music on ANY instrument.
Forget the snobbery of "expressiveness", and look at the capabilities
and limitations of the instrument.  A thumb piano can play chords.  A
sax cannot.  A sax can vary notes dynamically.  A thumb piano cannot.
Each has its own tone and capabilities.  Must we debate which is
"better"?  There is so much music to express... use the instruments
needed to express it!

-dave

By "beauty," I mean that which seems complete.
Obversely, that the incomplete, or the mutilated, is the ugly. 
Venus De Milo.
To a child she is ugly.       /* dstagner@icarus.net */
   -Charles Fort