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Mmmmmm kay... sine@zerocrossing.net wrote: > Frankly, I don't see why everyone is so up in arms about being > promoted in some way... any way. Because, 1) Matthias' original proposal explicitly singled out specific styles of music as being unworthy of inclusion, because they didn't seem to fit in with the niche he wanted to promote. For instance, he said that Rap music that used a real-time looper wouldn't fit in. Now, a couple of weeks ago, Hans Lindauer played me some KILLER live tracks he'd cooked up with a couple of MC's rapping over his EDP-powered tracks. According to Matthias' proposal, a guy running two EDP's simultaneously to cook up live looping music would not be eligible for this new web site because there are rappers involved. I don't think that's a good approach, personally. On the contrary, if you present hip-hop as being a viable outlet for real-time looping, it seems abundantly clear to me that you'll be *expanding* the total pool of potential listeners/customers. Rap fans who don't dig Frippertronics now suddenly have a reason to check it out. 2) If you promote something in the wrong sort of way, then you're doing a disservice to the thing that's supposedly being promoted. If you put time and money into advertising something, wouldn't it make sense to think about WHAT you're promoting, and which audience that thing is appropriate for? Matthias' philosophical background, as he's been kind enough to detail it, is very genuinely interesting and inspiring. But a lot of people who use looping are basically interested in creating live backing tracks for compositions, or other applications far more "mundane" than the sort of thing Mr. Grob is detailing. If someone is thinking about spending $650 on an EDP because they want to be a live one man band, goes to a website, and reads a deep philosophical treatise about how this is an instrument that's specifically designed to manifest the 20-year worldview of a Brazillian musician and inventor, will they turn away because they assume the instrument was specifically designed for a certain purpose? If, on the other hand, the web site showcases the overall scope of how real-time looping can be used, and they can see Jon Brion doing his one-man-band pop-song thing, they'll see and hear a brilliant example of exactly what they want to do. Matthias' spiritual journey can still be there, and still be accessible for the people who are curious, to discover as they may. But if that becomes the whole focus of the angle, rather than one facet of the overall picture (which is how it truly exists in the world at large), then the potential for reaching a wider audience is being diminished, because the target audience is being narrowed. And this is sort of what bothers me about your comments to the effect that what I'm doing isn't really looping, Mark. Your stance on this is coming from the tape-looping paradigm, which is at least 40 years old. It's like someone writing off electric guitar playing that makes use of feedback and distortion because those things weren't in general use in 1962. These things change with time, man. They move beyond what they used to be. They grow and evolve. This whole thread is about "defining" what looping is. My stance is that it should be defined by what it IS today, in the differeny myriad ways people use, and have used, the cross-stylistic technique and tool that it is. If someone does something with a looper that falls outside of what you commonly think of as looping, then there are two possibilities: you can expand your understanding of the concept, or you can apply your concept to what someone else is doing and say that they don't fit in. I personally think that the former option is much healthier, and much more effective at increasing the overall attractiveness of this "art form." Which is what the web site is supposed to do in the first place. > However, I really think that you can be told what an <insert name of > favorite looper here> does, you can see a demo of it, and still not be > interested in it... until you use one. > I think any web page should be a companion to a live > workshop/demo tour. I've gotten email from one fellow who bought an EDP specifically because of my Analysis Pages, and more specifically because of the ambient material I did five and a half years ago. Another guy here in LA bought one immediately after I did a presentation at the LA Composer's Forum Tech Salon back in August. Steve Lawson told me he got one after listening to my recordings from the end of 2001, but I don't believe he'd ever used one at that point. And of course there are PLENTY of folks who bought some kind of looper after seeing/hearing Robert Fripp or David Torn or some other famous looper do their thing, without having used it themselves. So, giving people a chance to use one hands-on can certainly help, but I know from personal experience that giving people a clear, articulate, well-defined, and musically interesting demonstration of the stuff can and does go a long way in sparking their curiosity. > I know I'd do a demo for free if I was also able to plug a CD > or live show. Would others be good with this? That would mean it would > cost Gibson very little. To me, this isn't a good idea. What you're talking about is teaching, and teaching is a serious proposition. It requires that a person not only understand the subject they're trying to talk about in depth, but are also able to articulate it in an intelligible and attractive manner, so that other people will be interested and intruigued by what they're presenting. Being a teacher/clinician is not easy, and in my own experience it takes a lot of preperatory time. It's *work*. Now, I've been fortunate enough to start making some money through the EDP this year by doing some clinics and private lessons, and I'm extremely, enormously grateful to the people who feel that my time and experience is worth their money. But getting to the point where I understand the EDP well enough to teach someone else about it to the extent that I can, has taken... what, 7 years? And as any professional teacher will tell you, I cannot afford to spend the necessary amount of time it takes to make myself an accomplished teacher within a particular area if I then give away my time. If people expect lessons to be taught for free, then potential teachers and clinicians will need to invest their time in other areas in order to make some kind of living. And the quality of the lessons will likely drop in a dramatic fashion. So yes: giving demos, clinics, etc. is all a very important part of it. But it's something that should be treated like a serious professional endeavor, both by the teacher and by the people being taught. Add to that the fact that, just as there isn't one way to play the guitar, there isn't just one way to use an EDP. Beyond the basic functionality of what the front panel buttons do, there are stylistic and aesthetic areas to be considered. Different instructors or clinicians are going to have different points of emphasis in what they do. It would take me a long, long time to try and use Feedback as fluidly as Matthias does, for instance. By the same token, the reason he invited me up to the LoopIV party was because he personally doesn't use many of the features in the software upgrade. One last side thought, regarding your proposal to use clinics to plug CDs: I get 60 to 70 unique visitors per day on my web site, most of them coming in via my EDP pages. The track "Asana" has been downloaded about 1,000 times since May. But I've sold a very small number of CD's via my website during that time - certainly not anything close to what you might hope for, given the amount of traffic I get. The point here is that exposure and attention is a useful thing, but it does NOT automatically translate into CD or merch sales. Yet another reason why I'm adamant about lessons and clinics not being treated as freebies or volunteer work. Anyway... Andre LaFosse http://www.altruistmusic.com