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Re:and a quick farewell. - Introduction and thoughts on human/machine tempo issues



my tempo has became somewhat 'sub-human' since i began looping 15 years 
ago.
this type of truth creates a lot of 'problems' with other players who take
tempo issue 'not very serious'. particularly drummers. it takes a certain
kind of drummer to hang with a looper to start with. its kind of like the
book, 'zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance by robert pirsig. his
search for 'truth' in the face of a 'non-truth' searching society, caused
him much grief no matter how true his truth was, there were very few there
to match it. in other words, up to a point do i want to be right or be
happy? ah... right? ive lightened up somewhat with my tempo expectations of
others but i still have a 'bare-minimum tempo excellence' that must at 
least
be in order.

ive always credited the looping tools for making my sub-human tempo what it
is today. thanks mike nelson at boomerang!!

anywho...

good topic. will be my last post for a while. im taking a bit of a roadtrip
and will not be online for the next month and 1/2.

best to all. will pop back in when i come back. will also have 2 loopers
delight t-shirts waiting for me to boot.

peace and love to all!

loop on and WATCH THE TEMPO to others. you best beware...


jimmy george
http://www.jimmygeorgearts.com


----- Original Message -----
From: Gene Ehrbar <gene@anomalyinc.com>
To: <Loopers-Delight@loopers-delight.com>
Sent: Sunday, June 22, 2003 7:42 PM
Subject: Introduction and thoughts on human/machine tempo issues


> Hi everyone!
>
> First, a brief introduction -- my name is gene, and I'm in Portland,
Oregon,
> USA, Earth.  I'm primarily a guitarist, though I fiddle with keys and
> mandolin as well.  I've been lurking on this list for a couple of weeks,
and
> have been quite impressed with both the signal-to-noise ratio and the
> quality of the discussion (you all seem to be a thoughtful, helpful
bunch).
>
> My looping is still in a pretty embryonic phase -- I've played guitar and
> mandolin in a variety of (mostly rock, some bluegrass) groups over the
> years, and became drawn to loop-based music when I started spinning
records
> a year or so ago.  I had an RC-20 for a little while, till I discovered
> Ableton Live (is anyone else on this list working with Live?), the
> capabilities of which are worlds beyond the Boss pedal.  My loops have
been
> mostly guitar and percussion so far, but I've begun using Propellerheads
> Reason for synth sounds in conjunction with Live, and the results have
been
> pretty good so far (Reason and Live go together like peanut butter and
> jelly).  I'm doing all of this on a laptop with a 4-in-4-out+MIDI USB
audio
> interface, so even though I end up a little cable-happy, it's still
> a managable gigging setup.  I imagine if I'd been more into harware 
>synths
> before getting into this, I might be reluctant to go this route, but so
far,
> it's been great.
>
> If anyone's interested, I'd be happy to offer some more in-depth thoughts
on
> Live.  For now, I just wanted to add my $0.02 on the whole
> drummer-tempo-sync thread.  First off, I've found playing with Live the
best
> rhythm training exercise I've ever had.  I've isolated a click in Live on
> the monitor
> channel, and until things get sufficiently going on a particular loop,
I'll
> check in on the click every now and then to keep things in sync, and once
> something fairly rhythmic has been established, I'll more or less abandon
> the click.  I definitely feel like my timekeeping has improved in the
short
> time I've been playing this way.
>
> I had a bit of a coming out last night when sitting in with a friend's
band
> at a party -- once the band had finished their set, I did a little 
>looping
> for the late-night crowd, and it seemed to come off quite nicely.
> Intrigued, the drummer from the band crept behind his set and started
> playing along.  At first, I could see some frustration on his part at
having
> to sync to the machine's tempo, but he made an effort to listen, and it
> really came together.  I decided against offering him my second set of
> headphones for a click, since he seemed to be doing fine without it, but
> this seems like a logical step.  Any non-click-averse drummers reasonably
> close to Portland who happen to see this and feel like jamming, feel free
> drop me a line.
>
> OK, enough rambling.  Nice to meet you all!
>
> cheers,
> gene
>
>
>
>
>