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Looper's Delight
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Hi, I just recently stumbled upon the list after seeing it on the "Elephant Talk" newsletter. Cool idea. I submitted my looping demographics on the "Looper's page." This is my first posting, so forgive me for rambling a little. In reference to the asynchronous looping, I'd love to find a drummer who can keep track of beats and time signatures without help (isn't that what a drummer's supposed to do--keep time?) But I've not found one yet who can play freely and creatively against a separate time signature or polyrhythmic textures. I recorded my album "Orion Ascending" with Pat Mundy, who played Indian tabla on two cuts. His ability to function in dense and intricate rhythmic textures was phenomenal, but when we experimented early on with loops, he just couldn't get used to it. He felt too "exposed" by being out there with no one else holding down the beat with him. My concept was that the drums create their own space while the loop makes a "context" for the events that occur within its "domain." It seems that drummers feel "naked" without a bass player or someone else keeping time with them. (I'd think that would be liberating!) On the CD, Pat ended up recording two acoustic (non-looped) pieces with me. I use both a 32-second Jam Man and a 4-second Digitech in my looped performances, and I enjoy the way the loops interact when they're not synced. I was jamming with a friend several months ago and we ended up creating some kind of weird collage with two non-synced loops. He wanted to stop playing and try again, and I yelled (over the cacophonous din) "No, keep it going--watch what happens!" In the moments that followed, in a manner similar to which your vision resolves those computer-generated 3-D posters into something discernable, the two loops created something new that was glued together by the playing that occurred between them. Our brains naturally seek patterns out of chaos... and left with only chaos to process, the brain will create its own patterns. In this manner, the audience becomes a participant in the creative process and no two listeners will come to this resolution in the same time or even the same way. It's like quantum music! When I recorded two looped pieces from my CD, I watched a cynical recording engineer go from a "what is this crap supposed to be?" attitude to total absorption into the looping process. After recording the second piece while sitting next to her in the control room, she turned to me and said "Greg, I'm so glad you decided to record your project with us." I was flattered and pleased to see how the process affected her. That's what makes looping so compelling and satisfying. My whole philosophy is that music exists around us like white light. My job, in performance, is to act as a prism that refracts the music that exists in that time and place into patterns, colors, and shapes that can be used to make "audible light." Finally, someone discussed earlier how to get your audience more involved. Here's an idea I use. Before launching into looped works, I briefly explain and demonstrate how the various pieces of technology work and show how a loop is constructed. Typically, I take a short children's round, like "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" or "Frere Jacques" and loop the melody and add the rounds. People can relate to that easily. Then I work from that loop and change the tonality to something modal, and begin to warp and twist it. Audiences love this! The other tip I had, is to explain briefly (accounting for non-musicians present) that the octave consists of 12 tones, and how they are named. I then select four people at random from the audience to call out a note name, which I then enter into a loop of varying length. The audience becomes very involved in this, and members with musical backgrounds often try to "sabotage" the process by adding intentionally dissonant tones. The last time I tried this the four notes I was given perfectly outlined a wholetone scale. This made a particularly monstrous loop which was delightful since the concert took place under a full moon, just a few days before Hallowe'en! Enough ramblings! This list is cool. I enjoy your comments and will answer e-mail as often as time permits. Cheers! Greg West/Six-String Arts