Re: What public is attracted by a Y2K Sampler Video?

[Zoe Keating <info@zoekeating.com>]

both my cellos, Ariege and Sebastian, insisted that i respond to this.  
(um, if anything, i am their tool)

a looping tool does nothing for me but record and repeat.  i can have  
all the looping gear in the world, but it will just record and repeat  
silence until i actually play music into it. when you say "cello" to  
someone, it conjures up an image of specific tonal, musical and even  
emotive characteristics. what analogous characteristics does "ableton  
live" conjure up in my mind? nothing. its a blank canvas. if all the  
electricity disappeared tomorrow, i could still perform, but i'd have  
to hire 8+ cellists to play the music (which is actually how looping  
started for me, i couldn't find enough cellists).

i know there are a lot of people on this list who do things  
differently: you might make a piece by manipulating static, or like  
tim exile use a single sample of a person crunching a potato chip.  
some of you play my definition of a musical instrument and also play  
your loopers like an instruments. in those cases your looper is an  
instrument and i totally respect it. but i think of it as a whole  
other world.

(p.s. interestingly, cello music, does seem to be a genre. people find  
me for projects because they go on iTunes seeking "cello music" for  
their ballets or films. i've wanted to drop the "one cello x 16" label  
from my next album, but so many people find new music by searching for  
the word "cello" that i feel like i need to leave it on there)


On Dec 13, 2009, at 12:16 AM, doc rossi wrote:

> Instruments, software, hardware all fall into the category of  
> "tools", so one can think of them as technical terms, and maybe a  
> technique like looping, which combines all three, is also really a  
> technical term. Maybe "Live Looping" is also a musical genre, but if  
> it is, not too many people know about it or what it is - I think a  
> lot of people would look for some other label, like Ambient, or Trip  
> Hop or whatever. I use looping within traditional music, or folk or  
> ethnic or whatever the devil you might want to call it, so for me  
> looping describes a technique rather than a genre.
>
> On Dec 13, 2009, at 9:06 AM, andy butler wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> Zoe Keating wrote:
>>
>>> i still think of looping as a technical term.
>>
>> like "cello"
>>
>