RE: Looping traditional musical forms / looping philosophy

["Mike Barrs" <mbarrs@nightviewer.com>]

> From: Greg House [mailto:ghunicycle@yahoo.com]
> Sent: Friday, August 29, 2003 9:07 AM
> To: Loopers-Delight@loopers-delight.com
> Subject: Looping traditional musical forms / looping philosophy

> --- Mike Barrs <mbarrs@nightviewer.com> wrote:
>
> >And then there is the problem of the "crash to a singularity"
>> when you've built up a looped "A" section with bass, rhythm
>> guitar and lead, and then suddenly move to naked guitar on the
>> "B" section because it needs a new bass line and new rhythm
> >chords. If you're not working in the ambient soundscape style,
>> you can't hide these transitions with washes of delay and reverb
>> tails.
>
> This is a different issue entirely, and not one exclusive to the
> Repeater.

Yeah, I'm getting that impression.

> If you're doing all kinds of different parts and layering
> up a whole bunch of stuff before moving to the next section of the
> piece, you're always going to have problems like this. As someone
> else said, it would be easier to move through the different parts
> adding a layer at a time instead.

I've tried that, and it works with some things. It's a question of how far
you think the audience will put up with you building a basic structure
before you get to the "good stuff".

> That said, if you can get to a Phil Keaggy concert, this guy does
> this better then anyone I've ever seen. I don't really hear it on
> his recordings, but in concert he uses loops on every single song.
> And all he does are traditional song arrangements, no "washy
> ambient" material at all. He does the entire show solo, with a
> Lexicon Jamman and the loops come in and out all the time.
> It's pretty much seemless too. If you weren't watching him dance
> around on the footpedals, and hearing other parts coming and going
> when there's only one guy on the stage, you'd probably never know
> he was looping (ie, if you only heard the audio). It's really quite
> amazing, and it sounds like what he's doing exactly what you want to
> do.

<snip>

Drat! I keep hearing Keaggy's name come up, and I'm never in the right 
place
at the right time to see him live. I wish there were more live performance
videos of artists like this, for us beginner loopers to cop a few ideas.

Mike Barrs