I am very excited to announce the beginning of a research/book project on loopers that I will be writing with my friend Gregory Taylor. The working title is, Loopers: Aesthetics, Technologies, and Creative Practitioners.
We want and need your input, from professional to amateur user/developer. Please read on, with links at the end.
As the title suggests, the manuscript will have three sections:
- An exploration of the aesthetics of repetition in music, and;
- Ethnographic information from people that use loopers, including their ideas/conceptions of the role of technology in their art, and;
- Software examples of different types of loopers used in musical performance and production. The examples will be authored in Max and freely available.
We would like to begin by getting a broad view of artists/musicians that use loopers as part of their performance practice. We are also very interested in hearing from people that MAKE and design loopers, as well as those that create music with them. There are absolutely no restrictions of genre, hardware, software, voice, instrument, et cetera. We want to hear from you, regardless if you are an amateur, home enthusiast, basement-music-maker, or professional…whether a hobbyist/tinkerer of software/hardware or a professional developer. Please participate, no limits as to who you are, what you use, or what you create…we want to know.
We appreciate your help, and are grateful for your input.
It can even be anonymous, if that would make you more comfortable or you do not want to be credited.
There is no minimum or maximum limit of the length of your response. You are free to answer however you like. We would recommend for longer responses that you complete them in a word processor (Docs, Word, Pages, et cetera) so you can edit them easily, save them while you consider your answers, then following that: go to the form and copy and paste from your word processor to the form. But you do not need to do it that way.
You do not need to answer all the questions, but we hope you do.
The specific questions asked on the form:
- Why do you work with live loop-based music? Please describe what you do. What is compelling about the medium? Can you describe your sound?
- What tools and instruments are used? Can you please describe your physical relationship to your tools/instruments? Are you passionate about a tool or specific technological platform? Why? Do your tools influence the way you play?
- If you build your own loopers: what ideas informed your decision to create your own over using one that is already built?
- What are the conceptions of skill in looping? What musicians of the past do you think exemplify this skill and why? What contemporary musicians do you think exemplify this skill and why? How does one gain such skills?
- How does your music and use of loops differ from what others do in the field? Who do you view as similar? Who do you view as different?
- Is your music—along with the use of loops—driven by a specific aesthetic? How is your aesthetic informed by the idea of repetition? Or is it?
- Is there a book or other text(s) that you have found inspiring, compelling, or informative to your creative and technical work with loopers?
Thank you so much for your interest! If you have any questions at all, please use the contact form linked in the menu of this website, or email the address found on the form.
We hope that you will share this widely with artists, musicians, and technology developers that work with loopers: https://jeffkaiser.com/loopers/
Please find the form at the following links:
https://bit.ly/loopers-book or;
https://forms.gle/VYmARu194LnqS7PG9 or;
