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Re: spatial looping, rhythmic looping



this sounds like great fun.

a more rigorous method of 'pointillism' is used in cuban bata drumming.
i have only barely been introduced to it but put simply, three players play
one
drum each with a low pitched head on the right and a high pitched head on
the left.
(thus six pitches)  there are sets of patterns that are worked out and 
there
are
groups that do more improv.  of course there are several ways to strike the
drums for
different sounds as well.  it's quite a bit more difficult than what you 
are
suggesting
but similar in nature.  hearing the whole pattern while playing only your
piece of it is
a great meditation exercise


----- Original Message -----
From: "Rick Walker" <GLOBAL@cruzio.com>
To: <Loopers-Delight@loopers-delight.com>
Sent: Saturday, October 21, 2000 12:19 AM
Subject: spatial looping, rhythmic looping


>     Regarding lance glover's comments on physical looping, we hatched an
idea
> in the world music fusion group that I have had for the last 11 years,
Worlds Collide,
> that has interesting looping possibilities.
>     One of the games that we've been into is having everyperson in an
improvisation take
> one note of a scale (and a found sound set of timbres such as blowing
bottles, playing pvc
> pipe, playing metal pitched bells, etc.).  We then pick a time signature
and count it
> outloud.
> Everybody gets to play their one pitch on one of the metric units of that
time signature
> (if you've never played this game before it is a great one for a
party----hand out a
> different
> pitched bottle to every person and let them play on any eighth note that
they choose in
> one measure of 4/4).  The rule of the game is:   you may only play one
note and you must
> commit to whatever note that you have played (say, the 'and' of three in 
>a
measure of
> 4/4).
> It is actually hard to get musicians to discipline themselves to playing
only one note and
> being content to being one cog in the musical machine.  Ironically, this
works best with
> non-musicians at a party.
>     Anyway, long story made longer, we each choose a piece of abs plastic
pipe (2"
> diameter with a rubber cap on the opposite end that you hit) that I had
cut into a scale.
> We picked a 7/4 time signature, each took one metric place in it and
played our respective
> notes with a zory (rubberized beach thong) as we walked in a circle 
>around
a hung stereo
> condenser mike.   In this way, the resultant looping bass line literally
plays in a circle
> around your head if you listen to it on headphones:  rhythmically looped
and spatially
> looped!!!  It sounds very cool and would work as long as you have a
direction sound source
> as you walk in a circle around the mic.
>
> Another cool thing is that the windows media player allows you to play a
.wav file
> repeatedly, thus creating a loop.  A cool experiment that I tried 
>involved
taking three
> persussion .wav files that had ambient tails and playing them each
simultaneously in three
> opened windows media files.   Because they each have random lengths they
cycle in and out
> of each other.    I started playing them whilst recording it all into
Sound Forge.   When
> all three sounds coincide I stop the recording. (it took about 20 
>seconds,
all tolled) I
> then edited out the last combination of the three timbres playing
simultanesouly and
> copied it a bunch of times and then  programmed it as
> a coherent rhythm.  Putting it all together, you have a completely random
rhythmic thing
> that suddenly turns into  a looped ostinato pattern.
>     ----Rick Walker (aka, one of many Loop.pooLs)
>
>