Re: Origins...

["Scott Bullerwell" <tanelorn@dimensional.com>]

Corynne writes:

> I was fortunate enough to have had the opportunity to have met one other
of
> us on this list.  During the time we talked, this person asked me a
> question which I'd like to present to the rest of the list...  I was
asked:
> 
> How do you begin your loop pieces?

Since I didn't ask you this Corynne I've gotta assume two things:

A. you've met at least two people on this list, and 
B. that you aren't particularly fortunate to have met me.  <grin>  

Anyhow...  here's how I begin my loop pieces:

1.  Deep breath and hold it.
2.  Stomp "Record" button.
3.  Realize I haven't thought out what I want to play.
3a. Get a bit wild-eyed.
4.  Fumble a few noises out of the instrument.
5.  Swear.
6.  Hit "End" button.

Then I spend a few minutes pulling my head out of you-know-where and decide
if I'm going to loop a little phrase like an ostinato, or if I'm gonna just
start smearing freaky noises all over the place, layering it up like some
demented gamelan, and make myself a loop (3 layers or more = "sludgescape."
 2 layers or less = "soundpaper.")  Having decided that, I start playing
the ostinato or start making freaky noises and when the timing and phrasing
and such is as good as it's gonna get, I click the "record" button and the
"end" button at the appropriate places.

Then I make a quality control decision: if I think I can work with it I
start noodling over the top until I've got something I can live with, at
which point I layer it on.  If I can't work with it, I'll try one or all of
the following loop-salvaging maneuvers:

Slow the loop to half speed.
Reverse the loop.
Run the loop through the intelligent harmonizer and a few gallons of audio
syrup via the Digitech Studio 400.
Bury the loop in several layers of innocuous, abstract sound overdubs.
Resample a short (2.8 sec) segment of the loop via the Studio 400 and use
that for the loop while I fix the first one.

If none of that works, I just kill the loop and start over.

Sometimes I have grand designs for a loop: for example, I want to play
something scalar with very specific phrasing during the loop, and then I
want to develop a counterpoint and layer it on there such that the notes or
chords in the second layer fall between the notes or chords in the first. 
In theory, I would get something that sounds like it was impossible (or at
least heroic) to play.  Ordinarily, however, it sounds like a couple of
teenage boys on LSD with cheap electric guitars.  

And sometimes I get lucky.  Didn't someone once suggest that musicians
"trust the inexpressible benevolence of the creative impulse?"  I forget
who.  Hmph.  I think it was a guitar player, though.  Probably nobody
connected to looping. ;-)

Scott Bullerwell
tanelorn@dimensional.com
Boulder, Colorado, USA