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Re: Re: livelooping. Ambient.
On 7/22/64 11:59 AM, Mark Hamburg wrote:
P.S. We noticed at Y2KX (I think) that the posters said nothing about
"music". Did that have an effect on being able to pull in a broader
audience? I don't know.
This is , of course, contextual, Mark.
I've so overpromoted the notion of what 'live looping' is in this county
that the local music newspapers
now refer to live looping artists without any explanation whatsoever.
We've been on the front page of every single major newspaper multiple
times in the past ten years,
had the Mayor of Santa Cruz come out and declare International Live
Looping Day in the city and
even learn to loop for the first time in front of the audience.
It's gotten so that it's pretty rare for me to talk about what I do with
the festivals with anyone
who hasn't heard of it yet.
This, of course, is completely anomalous outside of this area but it's
pretty de rigeur here.
Also, and especially in the last two years, we are seeing an increase
in live looping visual artists
who don't necessarily play music. I feel confidant that this is going
to increase and we are even working
pretty hard right now to create some software that allows for the
simulataneous creation of synchronized
audio and visual elements.
We could of course, be really accurate and call it the
Y2K12 INTERNATIONAL LIVE LOOPING (but not pre-canned loops) MUSIC and
VIDEO FESTIVAL
but that's pretty tough to put on a poster, I think.
Seriously, I've been involved with the start of a few musical
movements in my own area and I've
noticed that there is always confusion at the beginning of those
movements with name recognition
and appeal to larger crowds. There always is a tipping point,
however, if something really has resonance.
Another thing is that not all important musical and art movements are
popular ones. You don't
see Picasso's cubist paintings in multiple households, but still, that
movement had a huge impact on everything
from painting to design.
This Live Looping thing we've all been involved in, whether we call it
that or not, has already had a really big impact on the culture.
Increasingly, I'm hearing live looping techniques in Soundtracks,
Commercials.........Increasingly, I"m seeing pop music artists with
live loopers in their pedal boards (and I'm not talking about people in
our own community).
In the so called 'World Beat' movement that came out of Northern
California originally, there was a tipping point where
suddenly, a large percentage of pop groups were liberally incorporating
various world music ethnic traditions
into their own stew; where movie soundtracks and car commercials had a
liberal dose of that influence.
And yet, that musical scene never became very large outside of the West
Coast.........it was huge in Santa Cruz
but after about 6 or 7 years, all the world music clubs closed; the big
'world beat' bands quit selling out the big venues and even, in recent
years, it's been tough to book some of the largest acts in the world in
a big venue in our area.
Still that scene had a huge impact on the culture of this particular
area that extended outwards to our whole country.
Because of all of this stuff, I just don't worry about being super
popular with what we are doing.
Doing it, alone, is it's greatest reward in my heart.
Rick Walker