re: is using pre-recorded loops Cheating

["Rick Walker" <looppool@cruzio.com>]

Ted wrote:


"It is sooooooooo boring to hear the same loop going and going and going 
(like the Energizer Bunny). 

There was a time (about 15-20 years ago) that I thought it was really 
cool and "minimalistic" - hey look at me I'm Phillip Glass (or Robert 
Fripp, or whomever).  It does have a rather seductive navel-gazing 
trancelike 
appeal"

As with so many topics and ascertations on this list,  I agree with you, 
Ted, 
but I actually use quite a few static loops in my own music.

As a drummer and a song writer,  I learned early on that there is a place 
for 
what I call  "framing parts" in music;

Just as in a strong minimalist rock or r&b tune,  sometimes it is very 
appropriate to play the same drum beat over and over without any variation.
George Clinton's drummers are famous for doing this and I always try to 
take 
my latest funk oriented drum students to see him play any time he is in 
town.....just to see how minimalistically a drummer can play in service of 
a 
fantastic funky groove.    Frequently, his drummer will play 8th notes on 
the 
high hat,  two and four on snare drum and one and three on kick drum with 
very, very little variation in the groove.

This, of course,  sets up all the funk lines in the bass, guitar, 
clavinet, 
horn sections and vocals.

In this way,  I will frequently layer a series of non syncopated 
percussion 
or melodic parts to serve merely as a framing contrast to what I will put 
over the top that is more interesting.

I think of it as the 'diamond'  that is the focus of our attention against 
the all black velvet dress' that is the contrast that sets it off.

********

In much the same way that purely static loops can be boring,  I sometimes 
find that parts that continually morph and never settle into a strong 
groove 
or a strong thematic melody can also be equally boring.

Of course,  we are different musicians from one another and no one is 
correct 
and has the answer in this discourse,  but I for one, 
want to go on record to claim that one can use static loops (and, indeed, 
lots of them) in a very , very interesting piece of 
music..........especially 
if they are not a slave to using them and if they are in service, 
aesthetically to the piece of music.

I'm really with Zoe on this one:   I'm not at all opposed to using 
prerecorded loops in service to one's aesthetic and more than I'm opposed 
to 
reproducing pre composed pieces live on stage (a symphony orchestra,  Kid 
Beyond or Imogen Heap)  but every time I have flirted with it, myself, I 
have 
found my own self not quite so engaged, emotionally, as a performer.

I just saw a beautiful youtube performance that my brother did at Gavilan 
college where he used a drum machine and then I saw him play live again 
where 
he used only his guitar (and extremely creatively) to make his own 'drum 
tracks'.    Both performances were excellent but I related emotionally 
more 
to the one where he made his own tracks.

Of course,  he just layered several really neutral and perfectly repeated 
layers of 'framing rhythms' to create a drum groove that was neutral 
enough 
so that his own playing stood out against it in contrast.

In the fantastic book, 'the making of Kind of Blue' by Ashley Khan,  he 
talks 
about the fact that Miles experimented with modalism precisely because 
it's 
harmonic simplicity and openess gave the soloist far more freedom to 
determ 
the harmony of a piece of music.

On, 'In a Silent Way' and *Bitches Brew',  Miles continued on with this 
them 
with the first use of tape looped percussion parts which freed the 
instrumentalists and drummers to be able to create a more open and fluid 
form 
of percussive playing.

It was the statis of the loops that allowed for more freedom and diversity.

I dig that, personally
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