Re: Who here considers themselves a "Live Looper"?

["Steve Goodman" <spgoodman@earthlight.net>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Matthias Grob" <matthias@grob.org>
To: <Loopers-Delight@loopers-delight.com>
Sent: Sunday, June 01, 2003 04:49:AM
Subject: Re: Who here considers themselves a "Live Looper"?


> >
> >  > Just out of interest: Who on this list considers
> >>  themselves a  "Live
> >>  Looper"?
> >
> >If looping "live" in my living room counts, then I'm
> >a Live-Looper.
>
> yes, sure!
> This seems like a weakness of the name: it may suggest that this
> music has to happen on stage.
>
> >I'm also a guitar player. And yet,
> >you still don't know what style of music I play
> >(or if I have any style at all). :)
>
> style-less may be a style :-)

Well, that might be as exact as it gets.  That is, if one needs to know 
what
"kind" of music something is before considering it as music, neh?  I've 
been
over and over the various attempts at categorization performed by the Big
Five and their acolytes on this music we sort of do.  This thread alas
explores it all again, or further.  Why is it necessary?  Folks may not
understand it any more if it has a sign hanging on its neck saying what it
"is", and it should be evident by now...?

I'm reminded of my struggles to get "accepted" as a downhill skiier while
still in high school.  High School Teachers in roles like that of the ski
team tend to get allowed to turn their process into a clique, since it's 
not
mainstream sports amongst other reasons; this was no different in Ridgewood
High in the 70s, where the team was "run" by a "popular" Spanish teacher.
Despite having a great deal of control (as well as supreme joy!) in my own
technique, never having a crash, to say nothing of being clocked at over 70
MPH a number of times, I was excluded from the ski team because it was
thought by this "expert" that I "had no skiing style".  Go figure!

After a life like that, performing music that happens to utilize a series 
of
looping processes as a partial canvas - and therefore of course
uncatagorizable by the Hoi Polloi - seems in retrospect like nothing more
than a natural outgrowth for me.  I don't care what 
listeners/critics/record
companies call it so long as someone hears it, yes?

So I think the term "live looping" is as applicable as "nekkid nerve-ending
psychological mud-wrestling simulation via musical extents", if you ask me.
Well, by proxy anyway. :)

Steve Goodman
EarthLight Productions
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