Re: the side effects of looping

[Per Boysen <perboysen@gmail.com>]

---- Dan Katayama <dan.katayama@gmail.com> wrote:

>> But I've come to notice, that I've lost the ability to "write"  
>> with a band.
>> If they give me an idea, I can contribute, but to sit there and  
>> "write"
>> spontaneously has been difficult.


I subscribe to the idea that "composition" can be described as "slow  
motion improvisation". This gives you can improve composition  
abilities by practicing looping - but only if you practice looping in  
a split vision mind set (see below).


>> Because I'm still thinking in layers..I'm thinking slow...and  
>> somehow I've
>> lost something.

Do you mean that you visualize music as layers? And because layers in  
a long loop are laid down in a linear way, one after the other, you  
have gotten used to proceed slowly? If that's the case you need some  
medicine to recover ;-)) As a healthy practice you can focus on  
looping much faster. Make short loops and put new layers in on every  
round. Never "wait", play something all the time, while taking out  
old stuff (by feedback or SUSSubstitute etc.). That praxis will teach  
your brain to visualize music not as "layers on a time line" but as  
"a mess of many layers heard at once". You need to re-learn how to  
see the forrest, not only the specific tree you walk by. I think this  
is the most important factor in all music making, not only in  
looping. You have to master it, since it's a foundation. The very  
same skill is learned by ice hockey players, then called "split  
vision" - the ability to keep a true vision of all players positions  
while still being able to fiddle around with the puck right in front  
of your toes.

Greetings from Sweden

Per Boysen
www.boysen.se (Swedish)
www.looproom.com (international)
http://tinyurl.com/2kek7h (latest music release)