Re: Playing an instrument vs. building an instrument...

[Kim Flint <kflint@loopers-delight.com>]

At 03:33 AM 8/25/2003, SoundFNR@aol.com wrote:
> >   What I don't understand, is the desire for more and more and more of 
>a
> >  "better" something that may not even be defined yet, to create 
>something
> >  that one isn't even aware of, and doesn't seem to be going toward now.
> >  Dreaming is wonderful and so very important, but this sounds like a 
>very
> >  aimless and nameless pseudo-need to me.
>
>There's people out there who have a really strong vision
>of what they want to achieve with their music, surely
>it can't hurt for them to imagine a future technology
>that will help them to do this.

I think you got Cara's point backwards there. People with a strong vision 
of what they want are the people who also develop a very deep and 
intuitive 
connection to the instruments and tools they use to create. They spend 
they 
time focused on their idea and become very good at it. Those are also the 
people who drive the technologies and tools to be something better and 
new, 
because their vision rules over everything and they need the right tools 
to 
make it happen.

For example, Andre LaFosse and Matthias Grob are two people with very 
strong visions of what they want to do with their music, and have focused 
tremendous energy on developing those musical ideas. Both of them have 
such 
deep, personal, and intimate understandings of their instruments and tools 
that they can be very musical and expressive with them. At the same time 
both of them, by digging so deeply into their personal visions, have 
developed new techniques and looping functions that nobody else ever 
imagined, raising the bar and giving all the rest of us new looping tools 
in the process. By becoming so involved with that one idea, they could 
clearly see the next step to take.

On the other hand are the ones Cara speaks of, those who constantly toss 
out one thing to try the next shiny object, with no clear vision of what 
they are looking for. You never become intimate enough with any one thing 
to really make it a part of your ability to express yourself. You have a 
jumble of partially learned processes and instruments, and none of them 
really connected into you. Interestingly, while these are the ones always 
trying something new, they don't seem to be the ones who really start a 
revolution and create something new.

kim



______________________________________________________________________
Kim Flint                     | Looper's Delight
kflint@loopers-delight.com    | http://www.loopers-delight.com