I thought I would try to bring us back to some
more germane list topics, very particular to looping.
For a while last year, my personal website
referred to me as a looping "artist." I was rather proud of that
description because of all the effort I put into using, researching, and
promoting looping technology. However, this year I had second thoughts on
referring to myself as a looping artist. It seemed to me that looping was just
one element of my whole performance approach, but not the defining element.
For example, there were many so called "looping performances", especially
those where I played as a duo or trio, where I made minimal use of looping
technology. Looping technology was just one out of many devices I used
to express myself - but easily over-used in a duo or trio context. And
then I started thinking about looping relative to the concept of genre. I
don't really consider looping a genre, because we have all seen that there are
musicians from many typical genres (jazz, pop, ambient, experimental, fusion,
classical, etc) all using looping technology. Now that looping technology is
so prevalent in the industry, it seems odd to consider looping a genre...YET,
I still feel a strong sense of attachment and community to this list, a
feeling of solidarity that perhaps one can confound with genre Out of all the
lists that I am a member of, LD is the only one that gets close to a
sense of "family" and class membership. I have deveoped many, many
productive and enuring relationship as a result of this list. Now, I get
totally excited to go to a Y2K event and see many of you in person. It is a
powerful community, and I thank Kim for starting it.
Consequently, I don't consider myself a looping
artist anymore, but just a creative performance and composition artist. That
seems fitting for what I do, even though looping technology is most always
present in some degree or another in my work. But because of my passion toward
the technology and this list, I still feel tempted to call myself a looping
artist. And I feel a sense of pride in this when I see other mainstream
and well known artists use looping technology, but only as a gimick or
fleeting effect, vs. somethin that I have really mastered and can use as a
composition tool. We are among the few and proud, but how do we position
ourselves in the music industry? Are we are our own worse enemies?
What sort of influence do we have as a social network? Does the music
industry give a damn about this list? When is the last time any manufacture
has used this list to do user research on a new looping device? We are a
powerful group. Is the industry recognizing us for our accomplishments?
(Granted, that Guitar Mag article on Y2K7 was a NICE deal).
Thoughts?
Kris
