Re: why do people think looping is just for guitar?

[Kim Flint <kflint@annihilist.com>]

hey Andre, lots of good points.

I think maybe I overemphasized the marketing of looping tools in my last
pathetic attempt to make a point, and neglected the more musician/audience
level of perception, acceptance, and expectation. That I think is important
too, probably more so. If people are exploring this real-time looping thing
in different musics or evolving it to another level or even pushing it in
dramatically new directions, they will be greatly aided by a broader
conception of "looping" in the minds of the mainstream music world. If
people so readily associate looping as a "guitar thing" it limits the
audience and sets expectations that may be wrong. The virtuostic loopers,
if such beings are possible, should be appreciated for their conception,
usage, and artistry of looping in its own right.


At 11:00 PM -0800 2/13/98, Andre LaFosse wrote:
>The people doing dance and hip-hop music generally make very
>loop-oriented music, but it doesn't get done on gear that's thought of
>as "a looper" per so.  I mean, of course, that's *exactly* what they're
>doing.  But they're almost always doing it in step-time, with a sampler,
>sequencer, computer, and multitrack studio setup.

interestingly, in a totally unrelated situation, I was seeking opinions on
sequencer programs to figure out if I should update my copy of studio
vision or get something else. A lot of people kept hyping cubase, which
seems to be used by nearly every dance producer. One of the things people
seem to like about it are it's easy interface for looping and the real-time
nature of it. It allows you to set up loops easily and to easily add things
and experiment while the track keeps looping. One person went so far as to
claim that feature this feature had a lot to do with the many innovations
in dance music that have happened in recent years. hmmmmm....

And of course, everybody's nuts over rebirth, which is mostly a real time
program, and is very loop oriented in its operation! This is part of a huge
trend, with tons of very real-time programs and devices pointed at dance
music creators. A lot of these devices turn out to have many similarities
to devices like jamman and echoplex, just coming from a different
direction. The step time depiction of electronic dance music is hardly so
simple!

I think people create with loops in a wide variety of ways in any genre.
The real-time, largely improvisational approach that we mostly discuss here
is indeed used by some people in the more dance type styles you mention, in
a variety of interesting ways. And amongst the more droney ambient loopers
there are many who carefully compose everything and use sequencers to
accurately control the functions of their looping devices. And in all cases
I think there are people using combinations of both approaches. (Like David
Torn or Neal Schon or many others, who often improvise loops and record
them so that they can compose a piece around it later, where the loop will
be controlled by computers in a very step-time fashion.)

In my experience, the separations you are trying to draw are very cloudy
and indistinct. In reality, people use whichever approach makes sense to
them in a given situation, whether real-time or step-time or some
combination. When we talk about loop techniques, many of them work in
either temporal context. Compositional elements of looping, for instance,
can easily transcend the time related aspects of the creation.


>And in a way, the very cross-stylistic nature of looping that Kim so
>rightly brings up on occasion may actually be something of a hindrance
>in terms of people coming to terms with a "looper," because if someone
>makes hip-hop, or techno, or house, I'd dare say a significant number of
>them take the looping aspect for granted, to the point where they don't
>even think of it as being a distinct or defining handle for the music,

I almost never use the word "looper" or "looping" to describe these things
to people who are new to it, especially if they are coming from an
electronic music background. "Real-Time Sampling" works much better in that
case.

(another example: for people really into sampling, looping is what you do
to make the sample sustain! People who do a lot of sound design never
understand looping in the way we mean here.)

So perhaps there is a confusion of terminology? When I discuss the concept
of "real-time sampling" with people interested in dance music, they have no
problem grasping the idea or understanding how they would use it.



>And who tends to come to mind when the idea of a looper comes up?
>People like Robert Fripp and David Torn.  Why?  Because they've got the
>most high profile of any "loopists" I can think of.

*For You!*  For a lot of people, it's totally different! That's the whole
point of this discussion. Looping is a varied, fragmented thing, with
numerous lines of development. I don't think any one of them has some right
to claim itself as the true looping lineage and deny all the others. Its
absurd!

My interest, and again the reason why this forum even exists, is to bring
these different camps together in the interest of sharing ideas and
learning from each other. For that to work, we have to remain open and
accepting of ideas and musics and approaches that may be very different
from our own. As long as that fails to happen I will continue to make this
point, which will presumably be forever.


>Kim, this helps to answer your question from a week or so ago with
>regards to what it was exectly that Fripp did with looping that made him
>such an icon in the field.

Well, that sounds like I had a bit more attitude about it than I did!

Actually I was just hoping to get people away from endlessly discussing
Robert Fripp's performance behaviors and back to something more related to
the list topic. I figured if they could still talk about Fripp, it might
ease them into it. I was sort of disappointed that the only person who had
anything to say about it was Reg. His post was great and interesting, but
considering the quantity of interest in the guy, I sort of expected a
little more from the rest of you. For instance, Fripp sets his different
delay lines to specific mathematical ratios with the intent of creating
evolving textures that repeat in a long, yet specific amount of time. I
don't know what the numerical significance is to him (if any) but it seems
like he often uses prime number ratios, like 31:7 or something. Now how is
it that I know that and none of you Fripp fans ever brought it up? jeez.




>You also have to keep in mind that the sorts of synchronization and
>multiple loop features that would make current-generation loopers like
>the EDP or JamMan so well-suited to other musical areas are still very
>new ideas that not a lot of people are hip to.

as someone once said, we're only in the very beginning of all this.....


>This isn't a criticism, or a ghettoization, or a manifesto of division.
>It's simply an observation and speculation on differences that I feel
>are already present.  I apologize if anyone takes offense at my
>assumptions or conclusions, and welcome any alternative points of view.

none taken!

kim


______________________________________________________________________
Kim Flint                   | Looper's Delight
kflint@annihilist.com       | http://www.annihilist.com/loop/loop.html
http://www.annihilist.com/  | Loopers-Delight-request@annihilist.com