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Re: only a A part?



Hi all,

Just thought I'd pop in with my own $.02 about musical 
forms as it relates to looping (for me).

Any of you who might have been unlucky enough to have
ever heard any of my stuff will no doubt have noticed the 
distinct lack of ABA, ABACAB or any other "forms"
in what I do. There may be a beginning and a middle 
and an end . . . but nothing really quite like a song 
form there.

True, mostly it's because I'm a musical ignoramus, but 
not entirely. I don't come at music from a "musical"
background to begin with (I'm a painter/designer/visual
artist by training/temperment/profession). So, you'll just
have to excuse my lack of "formal" acumen where music 
is concerned.

Although I was a little more than just somewhat aware of 
song structures as I went about making looping music 
for the past umpity-ump years, the analogy I always 
had in my head was one of either painting or juggling --
not making "pop" songs (or any other kind of "songs" 
for that matter).

In painting there are forms and a set of aesthetic
principals (maybe) at work, but none were obviously,
directly analogous to musical forms as such (or so it 
seemed to me for a long time at least). I was/am a big 
fan of the American abstract expressionist painters 
of mid-century so I expect that might explain why.
Think Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Willem De Kooning, 
Franz Kline, Robert Motherwell or Helen Frankenthaler 
and you'll sortta have the idea.

On the other hand (to me), looping seemed/seems a lot 
like the art of juggling. In juggling, you toss a series of 
objects in the air and attempt to keep 'em going. If you're 
really good you can juggle several items and do things like 
add and/or subtract objects of different shapes, sizes 
textures and colors to the juggling "loop" to make it 
interesting, challenging, entertaining, beautiful. 

The delay loop is like gravity -- where stuff you toss up
keeps falling back at you (even your musical "clams").
The challenge for me is to keep it going and make it
interesting (even if there is one object -- like a red 
apple --that is always there in the loop from the
beginning to the end of the piece. It sorta gives 
the goings on a certain "continuity" and wholeness.

But, maybe I'm just lazy . . .

I love certain kinds of "pop" music. But I guess I never
really thought there was any good enough reason for 
me to try to do that. So many others were already 
doing it so well anyway. Why bother? What could I 
possibly add to THAT cultural conversation? Not much,
if anything.

I listen to a lot of non-western musics and to jazz
in which there is a musical statement (the head)
and various extemporizations of it over time -- then,
finally, a return to the simple beginning statement.
In some ways this seems like an ABA structure but 
in another way it seems like AA'A"A'''A''''A form,
or some such (to ignorant ol' me). I know this is 
kind of weird. But that's sorta where my brain was
when I started doing all of this looping schtuff --
and it has been there ever since.

I know that looping gear has advanced a long way
in the last 20 years. I may actually create "A"
"B" and "C" loops in my EDP as I'm going along 
now . . . but stupid me is still thinking of those
not as ABABABCABABA but still as AA'A''A''' etc.
It's a mental flaw and limitation I suppose -- like
the one that prevents me from singing and playing 
at the same time (I can't do that either). Oh well.

So sue me . . .

My hat is off to those folks who CAN actually think 
in this way and rehearse and study their looping gear 
'til they've got it so licked that it finally can enable
them to craft perfect pop song structures like
nobody's business (solo or in a band) in the heat of 
the moment. I can't do that -- just like I can't sing and 
play (or dance for that matter). That craft is an 
amazement to me . . . and beyond my kenning or 
ability to replicate in this lifetime.

Maybe in the next one . . .

Best regards,

Ted Killian
http://www.mp3s.com/tedkillian
http://www.pfmentum.com/flux.htm