Re: "Instrument" vs "Effect"

[a k butler <akbutler@tiscali.co.uk>]

Ted says
>Kris cites two definitions of instrument and then says...
>
>So, is my looper or effect device a instrument? In my opinion, no, 
>according
>to the above, unless they can be used to produce music by themselves,
>otherwise I think they are musical "tools" that take music and transform 
>it.
>
>A looping device IS a tool, a means to an end - something to augment 
>the sound you're making from something else.

Well, there's musicians who would apply that definition directly onto 
their instrument.
...and some who wouldn't.

In the same way, a lot of  people with a looping device would think 
of it merely as a way to create a couple of extra layers of whatever 
music they make with their instrument.

>
>And, as such, I think this may also be a reason why some people 
>(i.e. most of the general populus) isn't drawn to performers that 
>only qualify themselves as a 'looper', as if a 'looping' needs no 
>further explaining.
>
>I mean, would you go to a concert that is advertised as 'the 
>guitarist has a distortion pedal', 'the cellist plays with a bow and 
>her fingers', or 'the drummer has cymbals'???

1) I don't remember any performers who refer to themselves as a 
"looper" like that
2) The instrument being used is often mentioned when an event is 
promoted, "Organ Recital" for instance.

I call myself a "livelooping guitarist", it doesn't describe what I 
sound like, but then no short phrase begins to describe what I do. 
The music I make is all produced from the guitar, but also depends on 
the looping technology. The music I play has features that arise from 
the way I interact with the technology, to the extent that the music 
could not have existed by any other means.

The public face of looping is generally a matter of reproducing music 
that would otherwise require a couple of extra guys to play some 
repeated phrases.
I find that rather boring (in itself) and I can't imagine that "most 
of the general populous" are greatly excited by it.




andy butler
www.andybutler.com
www.myspace.com/livelooper

ps ( and for the 3-4 people still reading ;-)

KH:  You are preaching to the choir here....I think what you say 
follows intuitively from the definitions, unless you can find a 
looping devive out there that will produce music on its own, without 
audio input. So this point need not be belabored.

AB: An acoustic guitar is an instrument, the resonating chamber is an 
amplifier. Remove the resonating chamber, and replace it with a 
physically separated electric amplifier, then the 
electric-guitar/amplifier combination is an instrument, all you've 
done is replaced one amplifier with another.   In the same way that 
the buzzy bridge and sympathetic strings are part of a sitar, adding 
fx is part of the gtr-fx-amp instrument.
With most musical instruments there's a direct one to one 
correspondence between a single action of the performer, and a single 
musical sound. This makes it seem that a looping device can't be 
"part of the instrument", surely the looping is something that 
happens to the music after it has been created? Indeed, it's possible 
to use the loop technology profitably in that way.
Let's look at an example of an acoustic instrument, the orchestral 
harp. It's possible to imagine a series of notes and then play them 
on the harp, that's one way of playing it. It's also possible to 
interact with the instrument to produce glissandi, a case where more 
than one music event occurs from one gesture of the performer. So a 
musical instrument not only produces the notes, but can also be used 
interactively to produce musical structures specific to the instrument.


The gtr-fx-looper-amp instrument can be used by the musician to 
produce music that could not have existed any other way.
So I think it's possible for the looping device to also be part of 
the instrument.