Re: Looping with other musicians, new tools=new results

["max valentino" <ekstasis1@hotmail.com>]

>If everyone's supposed to be keeping time for themselves, why is it so 
>particularly important for the drummer to be able to hear the loop?
>
>TravisH
>>>>That's one school of thought.  The other school of
>>>thought (that the
>>>>drummer has the primary [not sole] responsibility
>>>of keeping time for the
>>>>rest of the band) has many more adherents, at
>>>least in North America.


My point was not that everyone should "keep time for themselves", but 
rather 
be RESPONSIBLE for keeping time for themselves.  A musician uses a 
metronome 
as a learning tool, but does not (hopefully) seek to play 
"metronomically".  
It is unfair for drummers to be used a "band metronomes", and unfair, and 
unmusical, for other musicians to "rely" on them as such. Certainly, while 
playing, we all listen to and respond to other players' phrasing, note 
selection, time, cadence etc.  This is all part of the inner dialogue of 
music. To assign the role of "timekeeper" to a member would inhibit this 
converstaion, as well as limit the other players' ability to grow.  Yet, 
drummers', due to the nature of their instrument and their training, are 
certainly more "aware" or sensitive to changes in tempo and time, and 
perhaps become the tempo "monitor"; the first to fire off any warning 
flares 
when things become a little too spongy.

Rhythm is not a static event, but rather is filled with ebbs and flows, 
expansion and contaction, speeding up and slowing down.  By maintaining 
one's own responsibility to the "time" an entire ensemble can live and 
breathe as on, musically.  When using loops, the band can simultaneously 
play with and against the loop while maintaing as sense of time and tempo.

And, in my post, I point out that an essential is a good and complete 
monitor system.  The loop has to be treated as another instrument which is 
audibly available to all, not just an effect of whomever is triggering it. 
When I work with bands, and use loops, I often run a seperate monitor mix 
off my rig, with  nother power amp and monitor speakers, to the various 
corners of the stage just for loop monitoring.  WHen everyone can hear a 
part clearly they can play to it, with it and for it.

Max

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