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Re: Articles on Live Looping as Compositional Tool



At 10:42 AM -0500 11/10/08, Warren Sirota wrote:
>I don't have any links for you, but I would encourage you to 
>explore, as part of your thesis, the fact that loop-based 
>composition is a new form of structure for music, much like song 
>form or sonata form (although maybe the latter is kind of a weak 
>analogy). People are wired to recognize repetition, and looping 
>lends not just density but also structure to free-form spontaneous 
>composition. Maybe most of us start in on this road through a desire 
>to be a kind of "one-person-band" for whatever reasons, but we 
>discover that looping has a profound effect on the type of music we 
>make and doesn't just fill in the gaps.

That is very true for me.  I got the looper so I could accompany 
myself (i.e. record the changes of my songs so I could play solos), 
then discovered a world of creative possibilities.

I have a number of compositions that began as loop improvisations.  I 
record the, edit them, analyze them to determine which three or four 
or five gestures give each one its character, and then use those 
building blocks to create it anew in live performance.  Terry Riley's 
"In C" is a model for this.

I thought I had an online interview I could point you to, but I 
haven't found it yet.  I can expound on it and offer examples if 
you're interested.

Here are two examples:

"Quarter to Five (For Tina Loney)": http://cloudsurfing.gdhour.com/?p=1075
"Dawn's Early Light": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yd7PHjy4k_c



-- 

David Gans - david@trufun.com or david@gdhour.com
Truth and Fun, Inc., 484 Lake Park Ave. #102, Oakland CA 94610-2730
Blog:  http://cloudsurfing.gdhour.com
Web site: http://www.dgans.com
Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dgans
Music: http://www.cdbaby.com/all/dgans