Re: "Live Looping"

["Dani Oore" <danioore@hotmail.com>]

hi all. ive mostly kept quiet here, checking-in on the thought provoking 
philisophical sides. stuff built up in my mind, and i pushed myself to 
share 
my personal explorations, inspite of insecurity and naivete...

yes, Andre C., i was thinking nearly the same thing last night, ex: is 
documentary [film/making] a genre or a process? is it more one than the 
other? is it an approach that can be applied to any style of film making 
(ex: documentary  horror romantic commedy)?

why do we name creative ideas and approaches?  is it to 'sell' a form? (i 
use the word 'sell,' not necessarilly as in for financial gain, but also 
as 
a notion of disseminating ideas: a simple way of getting people to 
accept/'buy into' your idea without actually experiencing it. ex: "i play 
garage") if we say that naming is a means of distinguishing forms, can we 
not say that distinguishing from one thing is a means of 'selling' another?

artists whose work is frequently labled and categorized by others, 
sometimes 
become frustrated by this static compartmentalization of their dynamic 
creativity.  perhaps it is because such naming/branding gives greater 
value 
to the form rather than the creative spirit which the form is meant to 
serve. most artists come to acknowledge that a 'perfect form' for an 
artist 
is the worst form for another artist, and what is at one time a 'perfect 
form' will, at another time, be the 'worst form'. [this is explained in 
wonderful, agonizing detail by kandinsky in his essay "on the question of 
form" in the "blaue reiter"]

is everyone who uses a pen or pencil, a writer? surely not, there are 
painters, architects, accountants, etc., and all their subdivisions...  
who 
each use a pencil for a diffierent purpose.  and i think its safe to 
assume 
pens and pencils have been used for countless other 
non-writing/non-drawing 
tasks (ex: as hair-bun pin).  i say someone is a banker or an abstract 
painter, or a jazz musician because that is a way of communicating this 
individual's skill that they sell, share, or contribute with some sense of 
purpose. not all 'loopers' are musically oriented.  and so, the name 'live 
looping' is a term made-up of general words with a specialized meaning 
(however general!) to certain musicians and audiences (ex: similarly as 
the 
word 'dominant' is a general word,  with specialized meaning for certain 
musicians).

semantically, the term 'live looping' seems about as specific as saying 
'prepared penciling' or 'prepared penning'  --probably even less specific, 
because from some of the threads ive read here, the notion of 'looping' is 
broader than just a musical or even a sonic concept, and often reflects 
some 
personal philosophy. by saying 'live looping,' one can refer to looping 
visual, kinesthetic, auditory... i mean, a massage is a 'live looping.' 
... 
our life: composed of loops composed of loops and so on... (eat/sleep/sex 
-and each a loop in itself). does live looping need electronic devices?: 
is 
minimalist music considered live looping?  what about jazz standards that 
loop the changes?  (an aesthetic that might be said to come from jazz's 
african roots, as tribal cultures --not just in africa--, usually are 
concerned with maintaining a balanced cyclical union with the earth, 
rather 
than the developing, expanding and conquering, typical of western civ's 
idealism... which goes hand-in-hand with aristotle's notion that a story 
or 
argument must have a begining, middle and an end. in contrast to tribal 
cultures' frequent cyclical, nature myths.)

naming a creative medium in a way that helps describe a fundamental 
characteristic of this medium of expression, is challenging for the 
dynamic 
creative spirit because one has to decide on where one draws their limits 
on 
his/her creative medium? since most --if not all-- people on this list are 
specifically concerned with live looping of sound (occassionaly in tandem 
with visual or other forms of loops) rather than live looping of car 
tires, 
most --if not all-- might also be satistfied to categorize (but not brand) 
their loop forms as "live sonic looping." [rather than just 'live looping' 
which is non-descript, except in its specialized definition -which is a 
'specialized vague'!!] such a lable, however accurate or not, probably 
would 
not help market the creative product because it isnt a catchy name like 
'rock 'n roll'. but even lables which are descriptive without being 
unreasonably limiting and preserve some of the catchy alliteration of 
'live 
looping', probably wouldnt feel or sound right to most, ex:  'sentient 
sonic 
sequencing;' 'sentient sonic stringing' abrv: 'stringing!;'  
[sentient=live, 
stringiing=string or series-patterns=loops and also many of you seem to 
play 
string inst.]
a name of a form should capture the spirit that the form serves.  a name 
like 'Jazz,' when it was first used to market some club's guest band, was 
successful precisely because no-one knew what it was or what to expect 
(--what better listener is there than one without expectations?)  maybe an 
onomatapea on the lines of pepsi can both capture the spirit that runs 
through your form, be discriptive and good for business? but then, who on 
this list uses a similar medium to express a similar creative spirit? if 
each individual has a unique creative spirit, even if expressed through a 
similar form... maybe you can just name your creative spirit rather than 
the 
form...  like naming a baby (do you name the spirit or the body of your 
child? in some cultures (ex: native american), an individual's name 
changes 
according to significant events in the person's experience), a baby is 
usually named well before personality has formed, developed and matured... 
ultimately you want your art, like your child, to speak on its own, have a 
life of its own... so you can say  "i play billy-bob!"  is there a 
movement? 
if so, maybe the children of a movement share family name!
maybe trying to come up with a most effective, and marketable name could 
be 
compared to writing a pop hit: it would seem to conform to a pattern, but 
with no apparent logic.  "Reality TV" -is that a genre, a process, a 
movement!? does it have anything to do with reality?  how, if at all, is 
it 
related to documentary form?

...Sentient Sonic Cycling. or just Sonic Cycling.  ...or 'Living Loops'  
-so 
that the 'live' modifies 'loop' -connoting a dynamic art form, not simply 
static 'loops' that exists in a dynamic, 'live' world.

thanks for the stimulating posts and the opportunity to share,

dani oore

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