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Looper's Delight
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Hi, thanks for such an interesting post. While I haven't looped specifically in the terms you mentioned yet, there are a couple of things I like to do which evolve loops musically in addition to evolving using sonic textures. One is to begin a loop in a certain key, or with the illusion of a certain key, and then gradually introduce certain specific notes which give the loop a dissonant quality, and then bring out the tone of a new key, resolving the perceived dissonance. Another idea I like is to bring out different modal ideas from a loop either by evolving the loop, soloing different ways along with it, or by adding to it, and then subtracting again, and then going somewhere else... I particularly enjoy the former with vocal looping, as I, like quite a few others here, it seems, really like the Lux Eterna dissonant vocal idea. Anyway, thanks again for your post. Have a wonderful evening!... Smiles, CQ At 02:18 AM 11/2/02 +0100, you wrote: >Hey Loopers, > >has anyone of you experience with what Douglas Hofstadter calls "strange >loops" in a musical sense? >Hofstadter uses the mentioned term in his book Gödel, Escher, Bach for >strange recursions of any kind. He starts by giving an example of canons >by >JS Bach which progress chromatically, i.e. when one voice of the canon has >been played once, it ends one tone higher and is thus repeated the second >time transposed, and so on... > >While working on my next heavily loop-based album "Sauflieder Band 2: >Extreme Ambient Terror", I got the idea that the inherent pitch-shifting >possibilities of the Repeater would make it easy hardware-wise to do this >kind of thing.(anyone else can of course do exactly the same what I'm >about >to describe using another looper and an external pitch shifter...) > >*** WARNING !!! LONG MUSIC THEORY BABBLE AHEAD *** > >One of my studies is based on a harmonic progression which, starting in >the >key of C, goes like this: > >Cm D7 Fm6 G7 Cm7 Ebm7 F#7 F > >taking a look at the functions of these chords in a C scale (and ignoring >for one moment 7ths and 6ths et al), we have: > >t DD s D t Dp DS(sub) S >(t tonic, d dominant, s subdominant, p parallel, g antiparallel, sub >substitution, uppercase=major, lowercase=minor)) > >This works ok as a strange plagal turnaround (which GF handel did like a >lot) in C key. But if we take a look at the last chords and assume for one >moment we're in Bb minor, this becomes: > >...dd s DD(sub) D > >...so we can append here the start of the loop transposed two semitones >downward. But there's more: Assume we have the loop running in reverse, >the >first chord is F, so let's assume for one moment we're in the key of F, >the >functions of the second half (= the first half reversed) become: > >...DD t sG d > >which is ok. But if we again do the analysis in the key of G (which is >incidentially F transposed one step up), we get: > >...T dG D s > >...and again, we can append the start (=the end) of the loop transposed >two >semitones upwards. > >So we have a loop which we can either run as is, and it makes sense >harmonically, or we can "think differen" and just pitch down two steps for >each round, and after seven rounds, we're back in the key of C. And if we >change our mind halfway, we just kick in reverse, and progress back up. > > >Another step I took was using polyphonic lines which tend to transpose >themselves (in the Bach way) and even make sense when combined in >different >transpositions. Take the following passive theme (=a bassline): > >C Bb D C E Ab C > >This is based on a wholetone scale, so the conventional harmonic >functional >theory does not apply in exactly the same way. Still, we have at the end a >progression which is centered around Bb, and if seen reversed at the end >(=the beginning) an ascending line leading to D. So again, we can use this >loop to transpose down in one and up in the other direction. What makes >the >use of the scale extra appealing is the fact that the notes of the scale >stay the same no matter where I transpose, thus, I can use a steady active >theme (=a melody) and have it running forwards and backwards and do >similair >tricks. >Of course, it is also interesting here to use an active theme which does >similair things. One I worked out transposes upwards, and I have two >copies >of it on adjacent tracks of the repeater, on of them recorded forward and >one reverse. So the bassline and the melody either transpose in opposite >directions (forward) or in unisono (backward). What makes this a little >bit >tricky is the modus operandi: I currently use a FCB1010 to transpose the >bassline to its 7 discrete levels and to switch into reverse, at the same >time sending mute/unmute commands to the two tracks containing the melody >forward and reverse, and use a keyboard to control the two melodies' >pitch. > > >So much of thinking aloud for today...and here back to my question: has >any >of you ever done anything similair, and perhaps is able to offer some >useful >hints (either for use of equipment to realize this stuff, or, more >importantly, hints for composing this way). > >And if you didn't do anything like this before...look forward to my next >CD! > > > Rainer > >Rainer Straschill >Moinlabs GFX and Soundworks - www.moinlabs.de >digital penis expert group - www.dpeg.de >The MoinSound Archives - www.mp3.com/moinlabs > > > --- "The only things I really think are important, are love, and eachother. -Then, anything is possible..." http://home.earthlink.net/~thefates Please visit The Guitar Cafe. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the-guitar-cafe