RE: Looping Catching on?

["Future Perfect" <artmusic@gte.net>]

 Exactly!! I'm sorry, if I wasn't clear with what I meant...the idea of
bringing looping to 'John and Jane' is easiest through something that they
can identify with. The original post deals with bringing looping to the
'mainstream' in some sort of commercial acceptance. I feel this can't be
done by the 'looping' part alone right away , no matter how good you are
with it- the public needs to be interested in things in the music they
understand, which sadly, as someone else pointed out, is VERY basic. How
about this: if there is a solo washboard player/singer in the  street 
during
a festival and a block down the road, a solo looper with guitar, guess who
will have the crowd. Why? I have no idea, although it must have something 
to
do with the fact that people don't understand that 'playing' a box with
flashing lights actually takes quite a bit of hard work. Maybe it looks 
like
our solo looper really isn't doing much playing at all, and letting the box
'do the work'- however the public rationalizes this,in the end result is 
the
same, a bigger crowd in front of the washboard player. Hell, guitar players
at G3 were booing Fripp for 'not playing' when I was there. Now, stick a
heavy bass drum, a I-IV-V, and a Jim Morrison wannabe on the stage with 
him,
and people would love it (at least at the show I saw).
This doesn't mean that I have to give up my dream of playing to 20,000 who
cheer when I am the only one onstage, making beeps and scraping sounds. But
for now, I know that kind of playing is inaccessible to the mainstream (I
don't know how Fripp put up with the screams of 'you suck' at G3)...and
avant-garde playing will never make it to the mainstream (then it wouldn't
be avant-garde, and live playing for that kind of music is limited to
'electronic music shows' in a warehouse on the bad part of town, with only
the other bands in the audience. I am lucky enough to be booked fairly
frequently, but that is mostly because there is a girl in my band who sings
and plays flute. If it was a guy who did the same thing, and we played the
same kinda music, I don't think we'd be playing as much. Go figure.

Dave Eichenberger
*********************************************************************
'Future Perfect' - art music
guitars-loops-flutes-devices-voices
http://home1.gte.net/artmusic/


> >Another option is being proficient on your instrument, for you 
>instrument
> >players out there. If you are a badass on that Warr or Stick or Tele or
> >French Horn, your loops may not be noticed as much, but John and
> Jane will
> >have something that they can appreciate
>
> I don't want to put words in someone's mouth, but I think this is
> antithetical to the point Paul made re DT's view of looping being
> perceived
> as a fad rather than an autonomous field of discipline... I don't
> think any
> of us are (at least intentionally) advocating the use of looping as a
> substitute for instrumental competency.