Re: what a loop has to say

["Kris Hartung" <khartung@cableone.net>]

When looping live in my typical free-improv mode, I usually start by 
clearing my mind as much as possible and starting with the closest mental 
state I can get to a "tabula rasa."  From that instant onward, what I play 
is direct result of my real-time intellectual reflections and feelings, my 
mood, etc. Those feelings and reflections are either generated in 
real-time 
by the music, or they are generated independently of the music, as I tend 
to 
be simultaneously both inside and outside of my music (and myself) while I 
am performing. After a few songs, I usually start noticing a thematic 
thread 
of continuity through each piece. I'm guessing that there is sort of a 
creative feedback process occurring, which gains momentum and eventually 
rounds out the whole evening performance as a holistic experience.

I suppose this is why most of my CDs are based on themes. Each song tells 
a 
story that leads to another and is connected either emotionally or 
intellectually. And usually I don't make sense out of these themes and 
firm 
them up completely until after I listen to the recording of my performance 
several times and I am allowed to interpret my own music in a different 
context. For example, the CD I have coming out next month is called 
"Interstellar Delirium".  There were subtle thoughts and feelings of 
sci-fi 
lingering inside of me when I recorded the music, and when I sat down and 
listen to the music, the theme just hit me....BAMM!  I had imagery and 
thoughts of a spaceman who is cutoff and abandoned by his 
mothership...afterwhich he lingers in the vacuum of space, slowing 
suffocating from a dwindling oxygen supply, and slowing freezing to 
death...during that time, he has a series of hallucinations, each of which 
inspired the names of the tunes on the CD.  It just works out this way for 
me when I perform and produce CDs.

As far as talking to the audience...I avoid it as much as possible. I'm 
sort 
of like Frisell in this regard. I say thank you a few times and nervously 
smile or laughwhile people applaud...that's about it.

Kris

----- Original Message ----- 


> Hi all,
>
>  I've been doing a lot of looping this year since I went stereo with a 
>2nd 
> EDP+.  I'm on one of my existential 'why do we loop' trips again.  This 
> time though, I'm not asking 'why we loop' but 'what are we trying to 
>say' 
> when we create a looping piece?  My recent looping pieces seem to be 
> defined by the texture of the sound I put into them.  The texture 
> determines the mood.  After I build it up then I'll try to contrast it 
> with a new loop.  After building that up, I'll return to the initial 
>loop 
> like a theme restatement thing.  The whole process though is very 
> abstract, the meaning is defined and always shifting with whatever happy 
> accidents occur in the loop itself.
>
>  How are others doing this?  Before you start building a loop, do you 
>have 
> a preconceived idea of what the loop should express or do you just let 
>the 
> sound of the loop guide you?  Those out there who perform for an 
>audience, 
> do you ever introduce a loop like, "this is a loop about <my 
> dog><France><groundhog day><whatever>"?  One of the exciting things I'm 
> finding about looping is it's a whole new musical form of communication 
> with a new language of techniques and a new way of saying things.
> Dennis
>
>