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Looper's Delight
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Hi Loopers, I've been lurking long enough - and what an active list this is - amazing! Apologies for what may seem like blowing my own trumpet, but I'd like to refer to one or two of my recorded works here as it may be relevant. I got into looping first when I had a few weekly private lessons in electronic music in a small but very creative London institute in about 1979 - my kindly and knowledgeable Swedish teacher introduced me to a VCS3/twin-Revox setup which blew my mind - I soon got the same setup myself, after a few limited but successful experiments using a Sony stereo tape deck and pulling the tape away from between the rec/play heads and looping it round a mike stand (a good way for those who only have one tapedeck). Later I saw a Stockhausen piece for string bass and tape delays in a church - another mind-blower! Later again I saw Frippertronics at the ICA in London - mind now in tatters! Got to know Fripp at that time and he kindly provided a piece for my "Miniatures" album (which had 51 one-minute pieces by all and sundry). At first he said he would tape Queen Elizabeth's voice then slow it down so it would - as he said - sound just like Prince Philip! Finally he sent me a tape of him playing a cheesy little organ in what sounds like one of his early polyrhythm experiments - probably the only piece on record of Fripp on the organ. By the way, I am just putting the finishing touches to the sequel, "Miniatures for the Millennium" - no release set as yet. Fripp is on there again, jamming with Trey Gunn. Other loop-type stuff on this album includes Terry Riley, Dagmar Andrtova (a Czech lady blasting an acoustic guitar through echoes), a one-minute version of Gavin Bryars' epic "Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet", Daniel Figgis (Irish minimal grunge), Chris Hughes (producer of McCartney, Tears for Fears, Robert Plant, etc., and a Reich fan - his piece loops his 3-year old daughter's voice), and things that are completely played or sung but sound looped by Piano Circus and Meredith Monk. One of my best looping projects was a 1980 album "Slow Music" with the wonderful soprano sax player Lol Coxhill. Lol played a free version of Handel's Largo. I then slowed down the tape of that to half speed, ran it through the VCS3's filter (sweeping) and then through long tape delays, and he played unerringly over that. On moving to Japan, my Yamaha SPX1000 inspired me to see what happens when you have two delays going (with a lot of feedback - say 90%) that are almost the same length - e.g., 5 secs and 5.001 secs. It's interesting - after a few repeats the echoes take on a thin metallic quality, emphasising certain harmonics. By adjusting the second delay by a millisecond or so, different harmonics can be emphasised. I've always loved dub, since the heady days of '76/'77 when most of the punk shows in London clubs also featured reggae/dub DJ's - a nice mix of cultures very reminiscent of ten years earlier when it was soul (Otis, James, Motown, Stax) plus rock (Who, Kinks, et al). So I am now the proud owner of a Roland Space Echo which has plenty of nice wow and flutter and filthy tape head noise. Also just picked up a Dynacord Echocord which is similar but has an Echoplex-type slider to control the delay time. My newest love is my TC2290 which goes up to 64 secs delay. Had to buy a used one as, unbelievably, due to the unavailabity of a small part (some kind of internal cable I believe) one can no longer buy upgrades to extend the delay time over 10 sec, although the 2290 is still on sale. I am just getting to grips with this monster. If anyone knows of a 2290 mailing list please would you post the address here? Another fine experience of looping which stands out in my memory is jamming at my home studio with a flamenco guitarist. He was unlooped but I invited him to play repeating short phrases in the same tempo/key as my Roland electronic piano, and once he felt totally comfortable with it, to add or subtract a note and keep on "manually looping". To keep the tempos together I ran my piano through a short delay - 1 or 2 secs. I found that I stayed on one (fairly fast 16th-note) phrase for almost the whole of the 30 minutes we played. All I could vary was finger pressure and the sustain pedal. Limiting myself to these two very simple modes of expression gradually opened up a whole new feeling in me, a continuing rush of energy and on-the-edgeness that was extraordinaarily invigorating. As my friend Jose and I left the studio soon after and headed for a bar I felt amazingly strong and balanced - the feeling persisted throughout the evening. To slightly digress, I had a similar experience with a camera! At the time I was experimenting with taking long exposures (2 or 3 mins) of city lights at night while moving the camera (handheld, or rotated on a tripod, or even dangling from my neck as I bicycled) - a kind of "painting on the film" if you will. One evening on a train from Osaka to Kyoto I stuck my lens up against the window and took photos of the passing lights, hoping that the lines thus drawn would be visually interesting. It really raised my perception of things that I normally ignore - the quality, colour, size and distance of the various lights. After I while I started slowly rotating the camera on the axis of the lens so the lines would become spirals and waves. This completely engrossed me for the entire journey (regardless of the strange looks I was getting from the other passengers!) and, like the previous example, I felt amazingly vital and yet peaceful afterwards. Without getting too corny, I also felt a lot of love for all my tired, hardworking Japanese fellow travellers as I walked through the crowded Kyoto station. It would be interesting to know what other "inner" experiences fellow loopers have had. The focus and attention required for this technique can be, I find, very uplifting, clarifying, and feels damn good! With thanks and best wishes, Morgan Fisher >From Morgan Fisher, Tokyo, Japan Email address: morgan@gol.com Second email address: Morgan_Fisher@ringo.net