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Looper's Delight
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Much is often said on this list about the technology not getting in the way of the music............or making the technology 'transparent'. I'd like to offer a different perspective: Modern software and hardware looping technology presents us with several different ways of manipulating the timbre and shape of our musical stylings. You take someone like Steve Lawson who is as flawlessly transparent as any looper I've had the pleasure of seeing and he has seemlessly integrated that technology into his live solo bass shows. Take away that technology and his shows would radically change..... As loopers, frequently however, our technology is NOT transparent. I challenge the brilliant Andre LaFosse, as an example, to reproduce his last several recordings with anything but an Echoplex with Loop 4 software. It just ain't gonna happen, my friends. Ya can't do it with a Repeater or a Jamman or a Line 6 or, or and believe me, Goddess and I have both tried (lol) Richard Zvonar without his eventides? Nope!!! Matt Davignon without his primitive 2 second stomp box antiquated digital delays. Na!!! My point here is that our individual sounds entirely reflect not only our artistry, aesthetics and technical ability but, equally, our technology, whether it is Les Paul putting an electro magnetic transducer on an acoustic guitar or a Papua New Guinea tribesperson skewering a giant Sargasso beetle and then maniplulating the overtones in a rhythmic way of the dying bugs wing spasms with the cavity of his mouth. To badly paraphrase the late Frank Zappa (who, I hate to admit it, I didn't like very much, but who's genius was both apparent and inspirational) "If you want to know what timbre is take the Star Spangled Banner as performed at Woodstock by Jimi Hendrix and then play it, note for not on a clarinet." You are what you play.............You are who you are..............You like what you like..........IT's ALL GOOD because it is creative and an expression of your humanity. Personally, I choose looping technology precisely because it IS repetitive and NON transparent. I like the juxtaposition of even static loops when it is done creatively...........from the simple surf rock of Stan Card to the multiple layers and textures of my brother, Bill Walker I can also, however, appreciate when people don't like the majority of looping artists. I'm not a huge fan of bluegrass, myself......... That fact just doesn't take away from the value of the music........it just speaks to my individual take on the world, aesthetically. To badly paraphrase Brian Eno: "if every human being on earth took a red crayon and a white piece of paper and made a drawing of a house and a tree, we would have 5 billion drawings of which NONE would exactly alike..............and yet a house and a tree are not made of red wax and white cellulose.................so each person would have filtered there vision of a house and a tree through their individual experience and technical ability and made a 'creation' that is totally unique...........consequently, every person would have been UNIQUELY CREATIVE." No one can control anyone's responses to things but if I were the benevolent dictator of the world I would force everyone to acknowledge that their judgements about other people's art are merely reflections of their own likes and dislikes, securities and insecurities. Ha ha ha...........if I were the ART dictator I would force people to quit being judgemental and separatist.......... what a paradox, eh? But then again, what do I know, I've been known to do three hour concerts only using dayglo green plastic, microphones and looping devices (without, shudder to think, ANY feedback control...................sly wink in the direction of my good friend Matthias). Oh yeah, and I'm classically trained as well.....................LOL. yours, Rick Walker (aka Loop.pooL)