A Sense of Time (and Timelessness)

[Todd Madson <crash@waste.org>]

I always noted certain musical artists had an effect of timelessness
on me (check out Terje Rypdal's more ethereal works, early to mid 
period Tangerine Dream, Michael Hoenig, etc.)

When I started playing music, it was hard enough to figure out what
to do on the instrument, much less determine a sense of time.

Later, after I started playing in a "progressive" band there
were so many complex changes in the music that it became hard to 
sense time - the stuff was literally always on the edge of our ability
and so hours passed but it seemed like just a few minutes since one
could barely breathe during the performances.  Everybody was straight
as an arrow (no alcohol even) as you had to be at the top of your game
just to play the stuff we were writing then.

It was only later that a sense of time emerged in what I was doing.

Later, in looping I found it was easy to get much more contemplative
and enter large spaces between the notes without fear of someone 
yelling that there weren't enough notes.

The best looping for me has a sense of timelessness.

On the back of Michael Hoenig's "Depature from the Northern Wasteland"
he was quoted as saying "Repetition is the image of eternity in music.."
(he used sequencers to death on that one, lots of loop-like repetition).

So repetition could be perceived as an image of eternity, or a reflection
of an interval (or a lifetime).  Kind of profound when one thinks about
it. 

So now I don't feel crazy for leaving processed loops going for hours!

I even have a really weird tune I did where there are looped guitars,
looped synths, drum programs, and a looped answering machine message.
Very odd.  I should put it up as a downloadable MP3 so you can hear it.

Todd Madson
Musician, Mountain Biker, Stunt Kite Flyer, BeOS/MacOS/Linux/WinNt user.
http://www.waste.org/~crash/index.html