Re: Acapella Loopers

[George Ludwig <sfmissionman@yahoo.com>]

10 bucks...hmmm..does that include shipping? (San Francisco) :)

What's your paypal account?



----- Original Message ----
From: Rick Walker <looppool@cruzio.com>
To: loopers-delight@loopers-delight.com
Sent: Wednesday, December 17, 2008 6:46:14 AM
Subject: re: Acapella Loopers


Uh,  not to be too self promoting, but I did an entirely 
acapella live looping CD and also did voice only performances for a full 
year of 
my life in 2005 and still do a fair amount of acapella vocal work in my 
current shows 
(though I'm also doing a Dayglo Orange Plastic show currently as well).

I've been on this kick (starting that year)  to, once a year, take the 
thing that I want to do 
to grow that scares me more than anything and forcing myself to do it.

that year I had the desire to hit the stage and only use my voice.
I had been working really hard on several invented and traditional 
extended vocal 
techniques for a while (different kinds of overtone singing, trill 
singing, uvulal singing, 
percussive body manipulations of the chest cavity to control the timbre, 
yodelling, hum whistling, 
whistle humming (yes, they are different!), faux industrial beat box and 
then a whole slew 
of attempts to replicate electronics instruments vocally.

I booked myself into the Woodstockhausen festival that year and did an 
entire 15 minute piece 
using only my mic, my loopers and some sound effects.  this led to a 30 
minute performance 
at Y2K5  and then I worked myself up to doing several different shows, 
increasing the length of time 
on stage until by the end of that year I did a series of vocal only 
performances that lasted an hour 
and more.

I put out recording called FAUX VOIX at the end of that experience (which 
included a few vocal 
performances from my '03 European/UK tour).  I also had a bunch of 
experments that were 
prompted by my frienship and correspondance with Cara Quinn (aka Goddess 
at the time).

One day I was typing to her, talking about something and I said,  "Well , 
you see what I mean, don't 
you"  and she replied,  "No , I don't see what you mean"

I thought she was being contentious so I said "why don't you see what I 
mean" 

and she replied,  "Because I'm blind"

"Blind?"  I replied,  "then how are you chatting with me in real time?"

And she said,  "because I'm using a text to voice editor"    It interprets 
your words and then speaks 
them to me in a computer voice."

Well, that just totally fascinated me.  We talked more and she sent me 
this software program that she 
uses (or used to use, it's been a while since I"ve talked to her about it).

Anway,  recognizing that all vowel sounds are just comb filter 
manipulations of the sound 
our voice boxes put out,  I started typing in some experimental 
'compositions' just using vowels
and sending them to Cara.  She did the same.  It was a really exciting 
experiment.

this particular program allowed the use of different languages (quite a 
few, actually) and every 
language pronounces vowel sounds with slightly different timbral emphasis.

One of them ,  Korean,  obviously has some rule that says that if a long 
vowel sound ends a word 
then the person speaking drops off the pitch at the end of the word.

By using Korean , I could fake out the computer by typing a sequence  like 

'oooooooooooooooooo'        after a certain time,  the vowels' pitch would 
drop  and it would keep 
dropping periodically.

In this way I was able to get different pitches in phrases.

I typed hundreds of expereiments and then assemble these short snippets 
inside 
of a sample program (Fruity Loops) and triggered them to create phrases 
and melodies.

There are a couple of these experiments on FAUX VOIX (and one on my 
website under the 
FAUX VOIX link).

I also found a website that if you typed in a word,  it would find that 
word sung in a popular 
commercially released song and just play only that sample.  In this way,  
you could write lyrics 
and the program would play the results back in a very amusing and unusual 
way.

Anyway,  that was what that record was about.    Some fans of mine think 
it's their favorite 
recording I've made as a solo artist.  It's certainly the strangest and it 
definitely sold 
a big fat hardly any copies when I released it.............lol.........I'm 
proud of it, though.

If you want to increase this starving artists' coffers around the 
Holidays,  it's available for $10 by 
paypalling me.............nudge, nudge, hint, hint., wink, wink.

okay,  self promotion over................whew!  <he listens to the entire 
digest list sighing heavily>

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