Re: When stuck -- how I create loops / ideas

[Dave Stagner <dstagner@icarus.net>]

On Tue, 22 Oct 1996, Olivier Malhomme wrote:

> This whole thing about patterns and so on make me think to a few comments
> I read of Brian Eno about music, and how he was deliberatly imposing
> limits in work to allow one to go further and be creative....
> 

I think Eno is completely right.  Modern technology gives us an
amazing amount of flexibility for making music... too much
flexibility.  As musicians, we need to impose limitations on ourselves
in order to create a workable environment where music can happen (the
flip side is we need to accept whatever technology is necessary to
achieve particular goals).  

Eno's choice of synthesizers is a case in point.  He uses three - a
Minimoog, a 70s Korg polyphonic, and a DX7.  Modern synthesizers, says
Eno, attempt to produce as wide a range of sounds as possible, and as
such, lose their unique voice and character.  It is better to use an
instrument with a strong characteristic voice, and work within the
limitations of that voice.  

I confine myself mostly to acoustic guitar for similar reasons.  It
gives me a broad, but not infinite pallette of tones to work with.  I
think of the looping devices as more canvas than paint, if you know
what I mean.  

-dave

By "beauty," I mean that which seems complete.
Obversely, that the incomplete, or the mutilated, is the ugly. 
Venus De Milo.
To a child she is ugly.       
   -Charles Fort              dstagner@icarus.net