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

[Andre LaFosse <altruist@earthlink.net>]

Kim Flint wrote:

> >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!

Looks like it's my turn to not be getting my point across!  Rest
assured, Kim, I'm not some hardcore Frippophile who wakes up in the
morning and listens to his Soundscapes CD collection in sequential order
whilst accessing the aphorism generator at the DGM website before
practicing angular odd-metered picking exercises in the New Standard
Tuning.  I'm *not* saying that Fripp is the True Looping Lineage.  I'm
talking about public perception of a very particular type of looping
that not a lot of people are associated with.

If somebody walks on stage in public and starts doing real-time looping
with some sort of dedicated looper or delay line (or reel-to-reel tape
loop, for that matter), using some instrument as a source sound, I would
dare say that for those people who have some prior reference point for
what's going on, that Fripp is going to be one of the first people to
come to mind, because of the methodology of that particular approach. 
I'm not talking about ReBirth-style "real-time" data entry, I'm talking
about recording and looping a sound right then and there.

I remember loaning an old Alesis Quadraverb to a cellist, who stumbled
across a very ordinary delay patch which compelled him to remark that
he'd love to experiment with my "Frippertronics" patch.  The
Electro-Harmonix 16-second delay used to be advertised as a
"Fripp-in-a-box."  And there's actually a patch on at least one model of
the Eventide Harmonizer called (you guessed it) "Frippertronics."  It's
a fairly long mono delay line with high feedback.

Let me ask you this: How many non-guitarists can you think of who have a
visible public profile in live, real-time looping, in the sort of way
that involves an EDP or Boomarang or JamMan or some such similar
device?  (Again, I'm not talking about a ReBirth type of live
programming/electronic synthesis or sample playback device, which is a
completely different breed altogether).  How many of them have been
doing it as long as Fripp, in as many different sorts of live situations
as he has?  I've got to underscore this: I'm *not* talking about the
actual musical content or value of what he does.  I'm talking about what
leads people to make this connection between real-time looping and
guitar playing.  These aren't my own, personal value judgements. 
They're my observations on what sorts of things tend to foster certain
public perceptions.

> 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.

Maybe it's because this sort of info is far from common knowledge.  I've
read many, many interviews with Fripp, including several where he talks
about his looping approach.  He tends to go on in depth about various
intellectual and philosophical postulations, but very rarely, if ever,
delves into concrete technical information.  If this is information you
got from him when you met him during your G-WIZ tenure, then take some
satisfaction in having been privy to some pretty rare information, and
please try not to get irate with us ordinary folk over the fact that not
all of us are granted the chance to talk to famous loopists on that sort
of in-depth basis.  If it's info you gleaned somewhere else, then you
either stumbled into a very obscure source of information, or else the
rest of us are even more dense and clueless than we'd thought.  Let's
hope it's not that last one...

-Andre