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re: is using pre-recorded loops Cheating
Ted wrote:
"It is sooooooooo boring to hear the same loop going and going and going
(like the Energizer Bunny).
There was a time (about 15-20 years ago) that I thought it was really
cool and "minimalistic" - hey look at me I'm Phillip Glass (or Robert
Fripp, or whomever). It does have a rather seductive navel-gazing
trancelike
appeal"
As with so many topics and ascertations on this list, I agree with you,
Ted,
but I actually use quite a few static loops in my own music.
As a drummer and a song writer, I learned early on that there is a place
for
what I call "framing parts" in music;
Just as in a strong minimalist rock or r&b tune, sometimes it is very
appropriate to play the same drum beat over and over without any variation.
George Clinton's drummers are famous for doing this and I always try to
take
my latest funk oriented drum students to see him play any time he is in
town.....just to see how minimalistically a drummer can play in service of
a
fantastic funky groove. Frequently, his drummer will play 8th notes on
the
high hat, two and four on snare drum and one and three on kick drum with
very, very little variation in the groove.
This, of course, sets up all the funk lines in the bass, guitar,
clavinet,
horn sections and vocals.
In this way, I will frequently layer a series of non syncopated
percussion
or melodic parts to serve merely as a framing contrast to what I will put
over the top that is more interesting.
I think of it as the 'diamond' that is the focus of our attention against
the all black velvet dress' that is the contrast that sets it off.
********
In much the same way that purely static loops can be boring, I sometimes
find that parts that continually morph and never settle into a strong
groove
or a strong thematic melody can also be equally boring.
Of course, we are different musicians from one another and no one is
correct
and has the answer in this discourse, but I for one,
want to go on record to claim that one can use static loops (and, indeed,
lots of them) in a very , very interesting piece of
music..........especially
if they are not a slave to using them and if they are in service,
aesthetically to the piece of music.
I'm really with Zoe on this one: I'm not at all opposed to using
prerecorded loops in service to one's aesthetic and more than I'm opposed
to
reproducing pre composed pieces live on stage (a symphony orchestra, Kid
Beyond or Imogen Heap) but every time I have flirted with it, myself, I
have
found my own self not quite so engaged, emotionally, as a performer.
I just saw a beautiful youtube performance that my brother did at Gavilan
college where he used a drum machine and then I saw him play live again
where
he used only his guitar (and extremely creatively) to make his own 'drum
tracks'. Both performances were excellent but I related emotionally
more
to the one where he made his own tracks.
Of course, he just layered several really neutral and perfectly repeated
layers of 'framing rhythms' to create a drum groove that was neutral
enough
so that his own playing stood out against it in contrast.
In the fantastic book, 'the making of Kind of Blue' by Ashley Khan, he
talks
about the fact that Miles experimented with modalism precisely because
it's
harmonic simplicity and openess gave the soloist far more freedom to
determ
the harmony of a piece of music.
On, 'In a Silent Way' and *Bitches Brew', Miles continued on with this
them
with the first use of tape looped percussion parts which freed the
instrumentalists and drummers to be able to create a more open and fluid
form
of percussive playing.
It was the statis of the loops that allowed for more freedom and diversity.
I dig that, personally
--