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Looper's Delight
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Speaking of "live loopers", i saw Summit on Saturday night in Boulder and it struck me the other night that Ustad Zakir Hussein could be considered a "live looper"...without the gear. That man is freakin' amazin! Sometimes i wonder if my interest in looping might be partially to compensate for my inadequacies (comparatively, at least) and inabilities to play live at the level that i imagine inside my head/heart. cheers, jim. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mark Hamburg" <mark_hamburg@baymoon.com> To: "Looper's Delight" <Loopers-Delight@loopers-delight.com> Sent: Monday, April 12, 2004 8:38 PM Subject: Branding: Live Looping > To Rick and the rest of the "Live Looping" crowd: > > I've been assuming that "Live Looping" was an effort to establish a brand > for some set of music. I think branding is useful because it gives an > audience points of reference. If they like some music associated with the > brand, they can have a reasonable expectation to like other music associated > with the brand. But what is the brand promise of "Live Looping"? Once that's > resolved, then it's a separate issue to decide whether or not "Live Looping" > is the best label for that brand promise. > > Frippertronics is an example of an overly successful brand. Robert Fripp > would probably have defined it as what you get when you plug Robert Fripp > into a looping system. The overly successful part came from people trying to > apply the term to music not involving Robert Fripp. That being said, it > remained descriptive for music sharing the general stylistic elements >that > Fripp established. If someone describes something as being >Frippertronics, I > have a general notion of what it is going to sound like. > > A number of record labels have successfully defined brands over the >years. > It's reasonably clear what is meant by the ECM sound though ECM's roster is > pretty diverse. Windham Hill had a fairly distinctive sound before >William > Ackerman sold out. 4AD has or had a fair degree of consistency as well. > > On the other hand, I think Windham Hill first tried to position their music > as "New Acoustic Music" and though descriptive the term never caught on, so > not all efforts at broad branding are successful. > > Returning to the "Live Looping" brand, I pose the following questions: > > Is anyone who uses a looping device live doing something that would fit > under the term "Live Looping"? > > If yes, then how much value does the term have -- outside perhaps of >Santa > Cruz -- for audiences? If yes, does this mean that the only real audience > for a live looping event is more or less other people using looopers >since > all that you can predict is use of looping devices (and technical > difficulties)? > > If no, then we hit on the issue that seems to bother a number of people here > which is that they feel they are using a looper live but aren't part of the > "live looping" movement. What is it that distinguishes "live looping" >from > music involving the use of looping devices in a live context? Is it > something that an audience can recognize? > > Can you do live looping in the studio or is the live experience an essential > part and recording CDs is pointless? > > Fundamentally, what is it that the "Live Looping" brand represents? Is it > something that is useful to audiences and if so how? If I didn't loop > myself, what is it that would make me want to go to a Live Looping event or > buy music identified as Live Looping? If it isn't useful to audiences why > use it as a brand? > > Mark > > P.S. This is written as someone who suspects that what he is doing is "Live > Looping". > >