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On Thu, Jul 24, 2008 at 5:21 AM, Patrick Suler <patricksuler@gmail.com> wrote: > > That's an interesting question, and quite poignant. > > I actually am most proficient on guitar, but I only loop with a >synthesizer. > The first reason being, when I used to loop with a guitar, everything >came > out as a surf tune. Not bad, but it all sounded the "same-ish". > > Having learned guitar in the bluesy Led Zep 16 year old sorta way, I had >to > break out of that paradigm, and the only way to do that was to switch to >a > different instrument. With different muscle memories, and different > textures. I knew a little bit of keyboard, so synth seemed a natural > progression. So right on the spot, Patrick! When I was 16 I thought "OMG when I have learned to play like Hendrix it's gonna be just awesome!" Well, after learning to play those sounds on the guitar I just couldn't find the point in it. I wasn't interested in forming a cover band, but rather interested in what is lurking beyond the music. Some years went by while I was recruited to different bands and record projects as "a hired gun" until I finally realized I had to pick up a second instrument in order to "find my own way". I don't think piano players may suffer this problem as much as guitar players. As you're saying we (guitarists) are building up tiny muscular reflexes in order to access expression through the instrument, but these "body mutations" also makes it harder to play differently - if you should want to. Norwegian guitarist Eivind Aarset told me he took another road to pass this typical barrier by setting out to deliberately kill his darlings, as opposed to learning a new instrument. He made up his mind to never play one single note that "lives in his fingers". Myself, as I later on expanded into sax playing, I noticed that reed instruments are less "dominating" and feels closer to your voice, which in turn is even closest to the origin of your musical inspiration inside your mind. It took me five mouth pieces (I reshaped their resonance chamber with tools until the got broke or, finally, sounded great) and about as many different saxophones to come close to the sound I hear inside. Then I picked up looping and this "instrument" is just endless. There are no limit to how you can expand it to explore new expressions (if you are not mainly interested in "catching a loop and solo over it", that is ;-) As for my latest babe, the alto flute, I chose it in order to expand looping. It's a portable instrument with a tone that can acoustically vary from a clean sine wave to an overtone driven aggressive punch. And you can mount a mic on it that picks up your voice well too, which makes for a broader sound palette. Since starting on the flute four years ago I have felt a growing frustration whith playing guitar and sax because they do not have the percussive qualities of the flute; I mean using any combination of consonants to drive the attack of the sound - almost vocalizing. This frustration is the same that I felt with non twang bar guitars some decades ago, being a floating twang bar addict back then ;-)) My way of coping with this new frustration is to play fretless guitar, since that offers yet another quality that the flute doesn't already excel in delivering. -- Greetings from Sweden Per Boysen www.boysen.se (Swedish) www.looproom.com (international) www.myspace.com/perboysen