Re: Academic/musicological research on looping technique?

[Matt Davignon <mattdavignon@gmail.com>]

Hmmm... interesting.

I'm coming into this conversation late in the game. The following is
just from what I've witnessed - there's no claim of expertise here. :)

To me, "Looping" is a technology, a technique, and could be called a
compositional style.

Technology: You buy a looping and put it in your rig. You have looping.

Technique: You learn how to use the looping pedal, and to incorporate
it into what you're doing. You learn a few tricks that can only be
done with looping pedals.

Compositional Style: As you continue to work with looping technology,
it affects the structure of your music. I find that even when the
looping pedal is taken away, I often still imitate things that it
does.
Example 1: Except for relatively advanced players, the song structure
of a looping performance is often "the ramp". That is, the player
starts out with a single layer, and continues adding layers until
he/she gets to a certain plateau, then solos over it. (I'm totally
guilty of this!)
Example 2: Except for relatively advanced players on relatively
advanced equipment, music that depends on looping equipment often
tends to focus on patterns that repeat for the entire song with little
variation. For example, if there is a Verse/Chorus song structure, the
Chorus often has additional loops on top of the existing chord
progression, rather than a different chord progression.
In some songs where there is a bridge, or a different chord
progression before the chorus, sometimes those elements are performed
and stored on the looping device before the song begins.
Example 3: Compositions often use elements or "tricks" that are
provided by the technology, that wouldn't be used otherwise. For
example, since I've been using a DL-4, many of my "songs" have
included point when everything switches to 1/2 speed. I also
frequently use the reverse function to layer forward and backward
material at the same time, to give a sense of disorientation.

Live Looping could arguably be called a genre, but in my brain, a
genre called "looping" would not necessarily describe all music that
involves live looping. In the same way that not all bands that jam fit
in the genre name of "jam bands".

Perhaps it works better as a modifier to a genre, like "Post" or
"Proto". In other words, there will be a definite genre like rock or
hip-hop, but with the definite added aesthetic that's provided by
repeating phrases of recorded musical material.

-- 
Matt Davignon
mattdavignon@gmail.com
www.ribosomemusic.com
Rigs! www.youtube.com/user/ribosomematt