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Looper's Delight
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>>Somebody pleeeeez start an interesting thread about music...anything! I'd >>do it but i'm too busy and exhausted to think at the moment. anything but >>gear...... >> >>kim > Okay, okay...we've calmed down about the bad simms, since we got our Echoplex back up and running with the old memory... We are skepticized by the notion that we have two bad pair and wonder if the Echoplex is perhaps more finicky about the 30 pin SIMMS that go into it then is advertised in the manual. We're going to try the three chip kind next. One thing that helped calm us was a visit last nite to the local Presbyterian church where we heard a choir sing the adapted works of a woman's choral "orchestra" originally performed during WW2 in Japanese prison camps in Indonesia. The music was traditional Western classics...Bach, Mozart...24 pieces, actually, that one of the women who was a camp organizer and obviously one smart cookie, recalled from earlier London music days and transcribed with the help of a young woman musician interned in the camp who was a graduate of the Royal Academy. The music was painstakingly written out for the ad hoc prison camp choral and then practiced every night for several months until it was finally performed at XMAS 1943 if I remember right. The Japanese were quite taken with the beauty and there is a book about the choir just publised, a memoir written by a Dutch/American woman who was in her early twenties when she and her sisters were interned. It's called SONG OF SURVIVAL. It's an interesting and quick read. We can recommend it and the music too. It has been recorded. I didn't get the CD so I can't provide details. The women were slowly starving to death and by 1944 the choir had disbanded because too many members had died. Still, all the camp survivors agreed that the music was an indisputable morale builder and ultimately life saver. One thing that struck us as we listened. The human voice is such a pitch delicate instrument. The quavers, wavers, modulations and oh so subtle de and retunings were just amazing to listen to in the big vaulted church. We want a choir at our next gig! But we seem to want everything, as you looper designers well know. It did make us think of one of our favorite "ambient" recordings. Thomas Tallis and his motets for 40 voices. We have an old EMI recording (vinyl) that serves as an inspiration. On another note, compositionally, on guitar, we've become quite interested the last couple weeks with "dropping" thirds. Just leaving them out. In the upper chord sets on guitar, this produces a kind of "primistive" dronal/model sound...reminds you of dulcimer music. Check it out. Try doubling roots, leaving sevenths or varionts thereon, but dumping that third. We've always been fans of the "fourth" sound in jazz that the likes of McCoy Tyner has exploited, but this sounds different again. Finally, we had a chance to jam a couple of weeks ago with a harp player (string kind). Beautiful instrument but the range and feedback problems were problematic. Made us ruminate on the deeper philosophical issue of adapting instruments to work with all this electronic gadgetry. While the LOopDoctOrs are quite fond of our solid body guitars, we are disturbed that the the first thing we thought of was telling this woman to get a solid body harp. Sure, the feedback thing would be moot, but are we in danger of eventually all playing the same stringed instrument? Attack and scale are different, but how much do you lose by taking the harp and plugging it for the sake of plugging in? Best, The LOopDoctOrs