EXPLAIN your 10th Anniversary Birthday 30 second tune

["loop.pool" <looppool@cruzio.com>]

I just went to Krispen's site for the 10th Anniversary 30 second looping 
project
and was really blown away at all the really interesting and cutting edge 
music
I hear there.

I thought it would be very educational for everyone to explain how they 
put 
their
particular piece together.


   I record a lot of my live improvisational shows and for the last
seven years I have only improvised live and not done any compositions 
(though
I revisit sets of instruments and will have set scales/modes/rags/maqams 
and
rhythms that I'm in love with for a while).

Frequently,  I'll go back to those shows and hunt down loops that I do 
want 
to use
in my abstract electronica CDs (I have a tendency to alternate composed, 
computer
driven abstract electronica recordings with live looping recordings).

I did the same with this particular piece,  throwing it into ACID to 
manipulate the loops
I 'sampled' from my self.

Anyway,  this particular track was from a one off theme show that I did (I 
love to do
theme oriented shows just once or twice)  called  'Weird Kalimba" where, 
for 
the
first time since the turn of the millennium I used only traditional West 
African, North
African and Middleeastern instruments and did a very avant garde show with 
them.

On this piece I used just West African rattles (several different kinds 
from 
bamboo rattles
to seed pod gourds to even a South African set of rattles made out of the 
husks of
Moth chrysalises).

I then used the Echoplex with INERT equaling SUBSTITUTE (one of my 
favorite 
techniques)
and rounded to 8th notes so that singing long tones in a particular scale 
the EDP would
grab individual 8th note values of long tones I was singing, randomly.

I love to play this game randomly because the piece starts sound really 
weird and without form
and the more you play the game, the more all 8 notes (or however many you 
choose) will fill
up.

By singing in falsetto,  I can effect a loop that sounds as if the  
Pygmies 
of the Ituri Forest
had accidentally drunk some  on LSD spiked punch.

The 'melody'  is just me using a couple of different extended vocal 
techniques  (warble singing and trill singing)
along with a couple of  interesting technique where
1)   I pound rhythmically on my chest with my fist which causes
very quick comb filtering effects to change the timbre of my voice as I 
also 
manipulate the overtones
of my falsetto notes and
2)  where is grab the loose skin just above my adams apple and shake it 
rhythmical which causes a very
interesting modulation effect on the voice.

both of these techniques  look really strange (as it does when I play my 
Filipino nose flute or manipulate the overtones
of my horribly phallic looking toy voice changer)  and the audience will 
sometimes laugh when I do this but
I think it produces really cool vocal effects.

yours,  Rick Walker