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Looper's Delight
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This ain't gonna be short. In my opinion, there are two challenges: 1) Making the public (or at least the musician's community in general) more acutely aware of everything looping can do/be. 2) Making the currently-existing looping community more acutely aware of everything looping can do/be. To me, these are intrinsically interrelated. In order for new people to be drawn into the looping fold, current loopers need to have a good sense of the possible tools and their myriad applications, and they need to be able to demonstrate some hint of the possible range of all of it. The more people there are who are finding new technical AND STYLISTIC niches for their looping, the more new people will be exposed to the stuff. So: reaching the public? The main thing that will "sell" looping to people is an actual audible (and, ideally, visual) demonstration of what the stuff is (and CAN BE, in terms of the different ways that potential customers might use it). An ad with a reasonably well-known musician touting looping might help... but I recall Lexicon running JamMan ads with photos/quotes by Torn and Mark Isham (amongst others) back in the day. Would Gibson have more success with an EDP ad these days? At the very least, such an ad would need to include web links to specific sound examples of this stuff, so people could actually fire up a web browser and HEAR it. But that could be tricky, since some people might never get around to doing that looking up. Even still, a good ad with some intriguing copy and interesting pictures/quotes/descriptions could lure some interested parties into checking it out. A more costly, but probably more effective approach, would be to include an audio CD (or data CD-ROM with mp3 files) with a specific musical instrument or technology magazine, showcasing different artists and - probably even more importantly - different technical and stylistic applications. For instance, Gibson could enclose a CD with every copy of Electronic Musician or Keyboard magazine, with recordings by various EDP folks using the tool in a variety of different contexts. If you put out a disc with Neal Schon, David Torn, Benny Reitveld, Amy Neuberg, Tom Heasley, Todd Reynolds, Hans Lindauer, Jon Wagner, and Steve Lawson on it, you'd have nine very different technical applications of one looper, in nine different STYLISTIC areas. Everything from electric guitar to voice to violin to bass to tuba to solo acoustic percussion to dance electronics would be covered. That could open a lot of people's ears, in a lot of different genres, and it could be a nice way to bring more widespread exposure to some more obscure artists. Or a more focused approach could work: a Bass Player Magazine EDP disc, a Guitar Player one, etc. It could reach players (and I think "players" are probably the prime market for the EDP, at least) who might not be inclined to read Electronic Musician or Keyboard. For that matter, a general article in a magazine would be great. If one or two companies and/or record labels were willing to put some advertising money into an issue, that could help spearhead an article that, for instance, could talk about different applications for guitar looping. It could cover the usual guitar-loop suspects like Fripp, Torn, Michael Brook, Chet Atkins, Keller Williams, Trey Anastasio, etc. as well as the not-so-usual ones: guys as far-flung as Neal Schon, Paul Dresher, Steve Howe, Claude Voit, et al. (And since he's a damn fine guitarist whether looping or not, I think Matthias Grob is LONG overdue for some recognition of his wonderfully musical touch on the six-string.) More to come? We'll see... --Andre