------------------------------
Content-Type: text/plain

Loopers-Delight-d Digest                                Volume 97 : Issue 10

Today's Topics:
  vortex adapter and manual - help?     [ James Reynolds <tritone@dsp.com> ]
  Re: creative isolation                [ angel@matisse.pet.upenn.edu (Emmanu ]
  Re: Creativity and Technique          [ Paolo Valladolid <pvallado@wayneswo ]
  Re: Creativity and Technique          [ Dave Stagner <dstagner@icarus.net> ]
  Re: slider & pedal for a vortex       [ Dave Stagner <dstagner@icarus.net> ]
  Re: the great Beyond.....             [ The Man Himself <altruist@shoko.CAL ]
  Re: the great Beyond.....             [ Kevin Simonson <simonson@uis.edu> ]
  RE: the great Beyond.....             [ "Ott, John" <John_Ott@ATK.COM> ]
  Glenn Gould                           [ vajra@dimensional.com (Robert Phelp ]
  Re: creative isolation                [ Paolo Valladolid <pvallado@wayneswo ]
  Re: creative isolation                [ PMimlitsch@aol.com ]

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------------------------------
Date: Mon, 20 Jan 1997 14:26:14 -0800
From: James Reynolds <tritone@dsp.com>
To: Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com
Subject: vortex adapter and manual - help?
Message-Id: <199701202226.OAA00647@dsp.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

hi folks,

as mentioned in my previous post, i just got a vortex w/out manual or
accessories.  my jamman sits silent and cold as its 9VAC lifesblood is
sucked up by its new friend.

i called lexicon to order the adapter today, got patched to the marketing
guy's answering machine, and was told he would be at NAMM 'til thursday
(which means i probably wouldn't get the goods for a couple weeks).  i want
to play with my toys!!!  does anyone know of anywhere (besides lexicon) one
can buy a 9V, 1 amp AC wall wart?  why did they have to use 9V AC, anyway?
so people would have no choice but to buy their special adapter?  (there
were some 9V, 780ma AC adapters at radio shack.  anyone know if that's
enough juice?)

also, being manual-less is rather unpleasant.  if someone, out of the sheer
generosity of their heart, could take a couple minutes to scan it and email
me some JPEGs (or 2-color GIFs, compressed TIFFs, whatever) i would be your
slave forever.  or, better idea:  they could be posted on the looper's
delight vortex page for others in a similar situation, or for people curious
about what this thing does.

also, if anyone has the vortex "application notes", i'm sure there are many
vortex users who would love to see these posted on the page.  no need for
OCR or transcription, any legible scans will do.

thanks in advance,

james

------------------------------
Date: Mon, 20 Jan 97 17:28:19 EST
From: angel@matisse.pet.upenn.edu (Emmanuel Angel)
To: Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com
Subject: Re: creative isolation
Message-Id: <9701202228.AA07081@matisse.pet.upenn.edu.noname>

The topic of creative isolation is striking a chord with me: probably
with many others.  Somewhat off formal list topic, but nonetheless central
to all of us who want to create.

My own situation, and life story, is one that has kept musical creative
satisfaction tantalizingly within arms reach, but far too infrequent
in its actualization (probably a familiar theme to many).  At the present
time, I am an overly-degreed individual, writing software in a Nuclear
Medicine group while pursuing a PhD in quantitative social science research
and program evaluation.

My primary creative impulses in life are and *have always been* musical
ones, but it has taken a very long time for me to realize the profound
depth to which this is true.  Actually, as I write this at 43, I am in
the process of evaluating/re-evaluating the direction that I want my
energies to take.

There are many reasons why and when we create, and why choose or don't choose
the musical road.  For me, the story has to do with the sense that I always
needed to be doing something else, something conventional, and also had to
do with some hand problems that have affected my feelings and senses about
playing the guitar (more than my actual ability, so I have come to learn).

Anyway, I know what creative isolation can be.  Although I spent a fair
portion of my 20's and 30's as a working musician, it has been a long
time since I've been surrounded *constantly* by performing and working
musicians.

Here are my insights, for what they may be worth.

I agree completely with Jason N. Joseph:

>As time wears on I become increasingly cynical about this, perhaps
>agreeing with Brian Eno that there is *no way* to be freed of one's
>influences, and thus the task at hand is not to find your own "pure
>voice", which I take it he does not believe to exist, but instead to 
>come up with the most interesting and unique combinations of such
>influences... "Composting" he calls it.

Ultimately, I believe that music is a communal enterprise.  On an
individual psychological level, we are never separate from those works
which inspire us, those we might perform with, and those for whom we might
perform.  I'm not saying we can't take immense joy from sitting alone with
our instrument, but to me there is always *some* degree to which we create
and perform for that virtual audience that we carry in our heads.  I think
there is a natural, communicative, and expressive human impulse to share
beautiful art with others.  I think it is a basic as an infant wanting
to have someone to babble to.

To wit, the people in my life (and there have been quite a few) who were
able to take their musicianship somewhere were those who made full-out,
no-safety-net commitments to the process.  Talent is important, but this
ability to commit is actually more important, given even a nominal degree
of talent.  I suppose there are varying levels of professional commitment.
My main point is that I've never witnessed really potent stuff coming
from someone who did their thing in isolation (doesn't mean it can't happen!).

What does all of this have to do with creative isolation?  I guess I would
subscribe to the "no person is an island" point of view.  We all start
somewhere, if we grow up in civilization.  Our aesthetics and tastes are
carved out and tuned by an interaction between our own nervous stuff and
the environment.  There is no "tabula rasa", but neither is there some
autonomous, congenital, pure, "inner voice", in my opinion.

So we are all musical mutts when it comes to our sensibilities and
imaginations, unless we have indeed been raised by wolves.  I don't
think we can ever escape our musical and tonal conditioning any more
than we can escape the meanings and nuances generated by the knowledge
of our mother tongues.

So what is this creative stuff all about, whether done in seeming isolation
or within a group session?  I think there is a large conditioning factor.
Dr Michael Pycraft Hughes wrote:

>Finally, Andre recommended listening to completely different avenues of
>music in order to overcome copying other musicians.  Matthias (got the tape
>yet?) went one step further in suggesting listening to _no_ other
>musicians.  I'll go the whole hog and say _give up your instrument_!  OK
>it's a bit extreme.

This, to me, sounds like a means toward overcoming one's musical conditioning.
But might not it be closer to the *learning* of something new.  Can we change
the way we organize our thoughts, perhaps even our personalities, by taking
up a new language?  Perhaps.  But might this be an indirect means, somewhat
haphazard, and eliminative of the stuff that has worked for us.

Musical and artistic styles seem to coalesce around the brilliant statements
of artists.  When we hear a great artist like ________ (fill in the blank),
we hear something that is so complete, sometimes so overwhelmingly powerful,
that to us it becomes a "pure" statement of something, like a heavenly voice,
ineffable, complete unto itself, having a life of it's own: the list of
superlatives can go on and on.  I feel this way when hearing great music,
and I realize that I cannot imagine it being any better: this music then
forms the horizon for what I may think is possible, although this perception
too is open to reinterpretation over time, and often does get reinterpreted.

So I think some of this discussion about "going beyond" and expanding
horizons has a lot to do with the analysis/synthesis process that we
all go through when we *learn* something new.  No two of us hear and feel
the same way.  No two of us have the same hands, the same joints for
fretting or pressing the keys.

The best way we can love and honor our influences is to make them our
own.  I think when we bring the music home, deep into ourselves, that this
is when we innovate ... this is when the synaptic connections are made.
Mostly, I think it requires conscious effort and the inner discipline that
seems to come when we give ourselves to something bigger than we can fully
grasp, which is what happens when we form hypotheses and think inductively.
When we do this, we take a risk, and there is often the anxiety that we may
fail to bring home the goods, to hit some mark of truth, in the vast field
of possibilities.

There are so many ways to characterize the creative musical process.  Probably
many of them are valid, and can help us in thinking about what we are doing.
For me, that inner "pure" voice is something that is sought via a process
that is dialetical in nature.  You have a thesis about the way your music
might sound from all your greatest influences.  As an antithesis to this,
you have all the things about those great influences that hit you in a
unique way: the unique factors you bring, be they psychological, physiological,
conceptual, experiential, spiritual, or whatever: you throw some variables
into the pot which are special to you.  The audible and observable things you
do is then some kind of synthesis of all these factors, many of them common
to what is out there in the world and some of them unique to you.  Some
people will be able to cultivate more of what is unique within them.

I think that people grow and cultivate their unique factors, their unique
contributions to what is already out there in the world.  I think it is a
semi-conscious process.  Another way of saying this, is that you can create
the conditions wherein the whole spectrum of learning and creativity
(i.e. thesis, antithesis, synthesis) become possible.  Once you have
the right primordial soup, all the conditions for life (or music) are
available, and all you need is the right spark to get some combustion
going.

A lot of the work takes place in creating those conditions; in creating
that soup.  A lot of that work is technical and specific.  How can I
play that voicing on the guitar?  Where on the neck can I get my hands
to play that scale?  What scales or patterns can I run over that chord?
How can I create phrases that will convey a particular feeling or create
a particular effect.  There is a lot of problem solving going on, but
not necessarily in terms of conventional notation, harmonic theory, etc.
These are just ways of describing or modeling something.  But there is
a lot of preparation for making music.  Everybody has to go through this.

Maybe the rest of creativity is intuition, talent, black magic, luck,
stubbornness, willpower.  Some people just have to work something over,
compulsively, till they get it to where it makes sense to them.  There
is a lot of processing going on.  Maybe a lot of it is going on even away
from the instrument.

When we finally hear a brilliant and "original" artist, we are taken
away by the statement, but the work that went into it is often lost on
us at that moment, almost hard to imagine.  Take an artist like Hendrix,
for example.  He didn't work with notation or harmonic theory, but you can
bet that he knew what sounds he was making while he played.  He's often
thought of as being revolutionary.  Often, other musicians reacted to him
as if he had come from outer space.  We know the cliches that he fell asleep
with his clothes on, the guitar across his chest.  When he was with the
Isley Brothers as a backup player, he was said to be playing constantly.
Who the hell knows what was going on with him during those times, how he
practiced, what he worked on.  We know he was deep into the blues, but he
also listened to Bob Dylan and a lot of pop music.  His understanding was
a deep one.  What he evolved into was no accident, no freak occurrence.

Another example is Frank Zappa: someone with a great musical mind and
imagination.  Some of his pieces have more ideas happening in a few
bars than others have happening in their life's work.  He was ripe with
"Invention" (appropriately, a mother of invention).  Where did that all
come from?  From nowhere?  In his mind his was tuning into 50's do-wop
music, blues, Bulgarian music, 20th century "serious" composition, etc.,
since he was a teenager.  He made connections.  He was able to internalize
stuff in ways that no one had before and make some serious musical mutations
out of what had come before.  His own metaphors of "invention" and "mutation"
are apt descriptions for what he was actually doing.  And of course he, as
did Hendrix, as did most of the great ones, made this music in a social
context.  There were people around.  Bands.  Music was written and put
together for live performance.  A person like Zappa had, it would seem,
a pretty keen awareness of what he was doing and of what materials he was
working with.  He once spoke about himself not as a composer, but as an
organizer of stuff.  "Give me some stuff", he said, "and I'll find a way
to organize it for you".

To cut to the chase of all this verbiage, it is my argument that no one
is free of their influences, even if they hole themselves up in a cave.

Jason N. Joseph wrote:

>I routinely bounce back and forth between these two seeming opposites
>[internal vs. external stimulus]. I'm slowly coming to some kind of piece
>with *that* incongruity, too.

To me, the "incongruity" is a perfect example of what I'm talking about.
There is a commutation, a "Composting" if you will, that goes on as
we absorb (thesis), react (antithesis), and create (synthesis).  There
is a continuum, an almost imperceptible passing back and forth as we
listen, react, compare, edit, etc., often in short spaces of time.

In Gestalt psychology, there is the duality of figure and ground.  Have
you ever seen those plates (line drawings) that can been seen as either
an old woman or a pretty young woman.  We are often jumping back and forth,
altering our own perspective on what we see, on what we hear.  Maybe in one
moment I will hear my striving to express an ideal as played by one of my
heros, as played by one of my influences.  In the next moment, I will hear
that the voice has become me, that I am making the statement now, and
that I have appropriated the music as my own.   It is amazing when this
happens, joyful.  All of a sudden, my whole is greater than the sum of
its parts, of its influences.  It is like catching that great proverbial
wave and going for it.  Thought and striving almost seem to stop as we
are witness to our own creativity, our own ability to make a statement
that is in ways like others, but yet like no other.  Figure and ground.
Figure and ground.  Go figure!

To get to this point, to be able to hang glide upon the thermals and
eddies that others have created, is called paying your dues.  It is the
love of the music that creates the energy and discipline to do this
crazy work, to practice for hours, to figure out the notes that somebody
else has played.

And again, we are hard-pressed to achieve isolation in this work.
If we put down the instrument for a year, maybe we are seeing the
extinction artifact as our habits decay.  I'm not questioning whether
or not one might not have a new sense of the music after a year away.
But generally, I think that growth and maturation as a player will be
accompanied by some conscious effort, irregardless of what formalisms
or symbolisms are used to model what is happening musically.  Although
time away from anything can make us feel fresh about what we do, I
wonder about the extent that time away can help us to do new things.
Might this not be more of a manipulation of our own perceptions than
a means toward new ideas and creativity, unless we are using that time
away to process and integrate what we have already been exposed to.  In
this sense it is like waking up fresh, after a good sleep, when things
somehow seem to have sorted themselves out (research on learning, in fact,
highlights the importance of sleep in integrating knowledge acquired).

Well, I have played with a lot of words here ... hopefully not put
others to sleep.  And it is so easy to get lost in words ... that is
why we all love music so much ... it cannot lie to us.

As a final note, it is interesting that this line of thought has
evolved among this group of loopers.  As a looper, is one not
creating some sort of creative isolation, in so far as one is
bouncing their ideas off the wall/mirror that looping devices provide.
Might not a lot of looping experimentation be likened to the game
of solitaire, in which one is forced to react to the choices that they
have made in the previous play.

I can see that others are responding on this topic of isolation and
creativity, so I will cut my entry here and read the others.

Can we ever start with a blank canvas, tabula rasa?  I think not.

Mickey

____________________________________________________________________________

Emmanuel Angel
Nuclear Medicine Physics and Instrumentation Group
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA
19104

angel@matisse.pet.upenn.edu

------------------------------
Date: Mon, 20 Jan 1997 14:40:42 -0800 (PST)
From: Paolo Valladolid <pvallado@waynesworld.ucsd.edu>
To: Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com
Subject: Re: Creativity and Technique
Message-Id: <199701202240.OAA22171@waynesworld.ucsd.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

> your inspiration.  It is  frustrating to have a musical
> idea and not have the technique to play it.  That's where
> I'm at with my looping (I've only had the jamdude for about
> a month now),  but I'm working on technique so I can reach
> that point.  Many music students give up before they develope the

>From personal experience and correspondence with other players I found
that whenever a musical idea is encountered that is difficult to play,
it's best to just work out the fingering and practice it slowly instead
of relying on canned exercises such as scales, arpeggios, etc. for 
solving the technical problem.

Paolo Valladolid
-----------------------------------------------------------------
|Moderator of Digital Guitar Digest, an Internet mailing list   |\ 
|for Music Technology and Stringed Instruments                  | \
-----------------------------------------------------------------  |
\ finger pvallado@waynesworld.ucsd.edu for more info             \ |
 \ http://waynesworld.ucsd.edu/DigitalGuitar/home.html            \| 
  -----------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------
Date: Mon, 20 Jan 1997 16:45:53 -0600 (CST)
From: Dave Stagner <dstagner@icarus.net>
To: "'Loopers Delight'" <Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com>
Subject: Re: Creativity and Technique
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.93.970120163544.16052A-100000@icarus.icarus.net>
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

On Mon, 20 Jan 1997, Ott, John wrote:

> I agree with most of your post Dave, However I don't think 
> technique is a trap within itself or a trade off from creativity. 
> I know what you mean by relying on stock licks or riffs being  a trap, 
>  but I believe to express yourself as a musician you need to practice
> technique 
> and develop skill.  Only when you have mastered your instrument can you
> play from 
> your inspiration.  It is  frustrating to have a musical
> idea and not have the technique to play it.  That's where
> I'm at with my looping (I've only had the jamdude for about
> a month now),  but I'm working on technique so I can reach
> that point.  Many music students give up before they develope the
> technique
> to play inspiring music because of said frustration and lack of patience
> or disipline. 
> (I got my brother's electric guitar that way)

Technique is only necessary to the point where you are capable of
expressing the idea in your head.  Moreover, and perhaps more
importantly, technique is no guarantee of expression.  And even more
importantly, technique is far broader than the ability to physically
control the instrument.  The intellectual and emotional processes to
tap new ideas to express are also technique.  

Look at Neil Young.  "Technically", he's not a very good guitarist.
But as someone once observed, you can't slip a piece of paper between
what he feels and what he plays.  His technique is sufficient for his
expression.  He's no master of his instrument, but he's a master of
the technique of channelling his emotions musically.  

> I think technique and creativity are not opposing forces
> but are complimentary.

I carefully chose the word "balance" for the relationship of technique
and expression.  Balance implies neither opposition nor compliment. 
Art comes from the balance between technique and expression.  Too much
technique shifts the art away from expression.  Insufficient technique
prevents the art from being realized.  

Perhaps even "balance" is a poor term.  Technique must be sufficient
for expression, but excessive technique is unnecessary.  And the
temptation to use excessive technique detracts us from expression.  

-dave

By "beauty," I mean that which seems complete.
Obversely, that the incomplete, or the mutilated, is the ugly. 
Venus De Milo.
To a child she is ugly.       /* dstagner@icarus.net */
   -Charles Fort              

------------------------------
Date: Mon, 20 Jan 1997 16:51:20 -0600 (CST)
From: Dave Stagner <dstagner@icarus.net>
To: Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com
Subject: Re: slider & pedal for a vortex
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.93.970120164758.16052B-100000@icarus.icarus.net>
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

On Mon, 20 Jan 1997, James Reynolds wrote:

> >hi all ! i also wonder about my vortex/expression issue. I just got (one of
> >the last) guitar center ones - no problems, it seems - tho' it arrived sans
> >"footpedal" or booklet !! are the instructions on line somewhere ?? also - i
> >have a roland EV-10 expression ped. - what do i have to do to set it up -
> >other than plug it in ?? any settings?? 
> 
> i'm in just about the exact same situation as you - snagged the last bay
> area guitar center vortex, no manual or accessories.  i also got a roland
> ev-5 pedal (the one used by John Durant), but it doesn't seem to do anything
> by just plugging it in.  what's the trick?

No manual?  Eeek!!  Does someone have a spare they can send James?
I'd hate to have a Vortex with no manual... 

To assign the pedal to a parameter, turn the select knob to the
correct parameter and press the "Tap" button.  Then the pedal will
control that parameter.

-dave

By "beauty," I mean that which seems complete.
Obversely, that the incomplete, or the mutilated, is the ugly. 
Venus De Milo.
To a child she is ugly.       /* dstagner@icarus.net */
   -Charles Fort              

------------------------------
Date: Mon, 20 Jan 1997 15:03:05 -0800 (PST)
From: The Man Himself <altruist@shoko.CALARTS.EDU>
To: Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com
Subject: Re: the great Beyond.....
Message-ID: <Pine.SGI.3.91.970120150136.2012A-100000@shoko.CALARTS.EDU>
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

On Mon, 20 Jan 1997, Matthias Grob wrote:

> A friend even told me, that he keeps practicing while driving, by
> imaginating the sound and the fingering, and really, it helps!

A few years ago, when I was bedridden after a tonsilectomy, I mentally 
went over some ideas I wanted to try out on the fingerboard without 
actually having had the chance to sit down and work it out.  When I went 
to play again for the first time in a week, it was all in place.  Mind 
over matter...!

--Andre

------------------------------
Date: Mon, 20 Jan 1997 17:31:43 -0700 (CST)
From: Kevin Simonson <simonson@uis.edu>
To: Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com
Subject: Re: the great Beyond.....
Message-Id: <199701202331.AA243583103@eagle.uis.edu>
Content-Type: text
Content-Length:        813

> 
> A few years ago, when I was bedridden after a tonsilectomy, I mentally 
> went over some ideas I wanted to try out on the fingerboard without 
> actually having had the chance to sit down and work it out.  When I went 
> to play again for the first time in a week, it was all in place.  Mind 
> over matter...!
> 

Ironically enough, my Father in law is a professional organist who swears
that after he studied the manual on a scientific calculator, he was able to
play Bach and Vidor pieces as though he had practiced for a considerable
amount of time!

-- 
Kevin Simonson                      * AS/400 Application Development Team
University of Illinois-Springfield  * Programmer / Analyst
Computer Science, et al.            * Norwest Mortgage, Inc.
simonson@eagle.uis.edu              * Springfield, IL

------------------------------
Date: Mon, 20 Jan 1997 17:27:21 -0600
From: "Ott, John" <John_Ott@ATK.COM>
To: "'Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com'" <Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com>
Subject: RE: the great Beyond.....
Message-ID: <c=US%a=_%p=ATK%l=EXCHANGE_MN1-970120232721Z-15557@Exchange_MN1.ATK.COM>

>>----------
>From:  The Man Himself
>Sent:  Monday, January 20, 1997 11:03 PM
>To:    John_Ott@ATK.COM
>Subject:       Re: the great Beyond.....
>
>On Mon, 20 Jan 1997, Matthias Grob wrote:
>
>> A friend even told me, that he keeps practicing while driving, by
>> imaginating the sound and the fingering, and really, it helps!
>
>A few years ago, when I was bedridden after a tonsilectomy, I mentally 
>went over some ideas I wanted to try out on the fingerboard without 
>actually having had the chance to sit down and work it out.  When I went 
>to play again for the first time in a week, it was all in place.  Mind 
>over matter...!
>
--Andre<

I prefer Andre's technique.  Much easier on car bumpers.

later
>John
>
>

------------------------------
Date: Mon, 20 Jan 1997 19:08:53 +0100
From: vajra@dimensional.com (Robert Phelps)
To: Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com
Subject: Glenn Gould
Message-Id: <v01520d00af09604898d2@[208.206.177.171]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

 A quick question after a marvelously rich day on this list. Haven't
digested all comments thoroughly enough to have one of my own, but a
question has occurred to me again and again. As far as the topics of
"creative isolation" and "technique and/vs. creativity" and even
"practicing while driving" go, I'm really wondering how many out there is
familiar with the writings and life of Glenn Gould??? I would think if not
many would find his ideas facinating, fruitful, and food for much further
thought on these topics. And as far as Fripp's or Eno's use of the studio
as a compositional tool, Gould's thoughts on that predated their's by a
decade. The coming technology was a fave topic of his and gosh knows what
he might have had to say on the subject of looping. A good place to start
would be " Glenn Gould Music and Mind by Geoffrey Payzant (PARTICULARLY
chptrs 4&5),as well as The Glenn Gould Reader by Tim Page. (Last year's
film 32 Short Films About Glenn Gould was a treat too, but an adaptation of
sorts with attendant "entertainment value". I'd reccomend the books. He was
of course coming from the "classical" world of thought and experience (A
big "So What?" occurs in my head), but SO many of his thoughts seem to echo
those out there on this list at times. Just thought I'd drop the hint. B.P.

------------------------------
Date: Mon, 20 Jan 1997 16:42:24 -0800 (PST)
From: Paolo Valladolid <pvallado@waynesworld.ucsd.edu>
To: Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com
Subject: Re: creative isolation
Message-Id: <199701210042.QAA23076@waynesworld.ucsd.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

I recently went through a stage where I felt Pat Metheny, the King
Crimson players, Allan Holdsworth, John McLaughlin and Fred Frith (please
don't be offended if I left out the name of your favorite guitarist) pretty 
much said everything I ever wanted to say on guitar so I stopped playing the 
guitar. I haven't played it seriously in almost a year now.  I mostly played 
Chapman Stick.  Most recently I bought a little drum made in Pakistan, a 
pair of drumsticks, and have begun practicing some of the 26 standard drum 
rudiments.

At present, I feel like I am on an extended vacation from the guitar. 
Playing the Stick reminded me of my childhood piano playing experience
but more importantly turned me on to the idea of being a bass player.

The funny thing is that recent recordings that have made me excited about
music again either feature the bass prominently (Victor Wooten - A Show
Of Hands, Me'shell NgedeOcello's latest CD) or feature looping either
in and of itself or as part of a pop context (latest CDs by Meat Beat
Manifesto, DJ Spooky, Beck's _Odelay_).  


Paolo Valladolid
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------------------------------
Date: Mon, 20 Jan 1997 19:45:15 -0500 (EST)
From: PMimlitsch@aol.com
To: Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com
Subject: Re: creative isolation
Message-ID: <970120193824_1177462304@emout11.mail.aol.com>

 a few observations:    
1)accept the fact that you are, at least to some extent, a product of your
environmet. Thus everything is an "influence".
2)"bad" influences are of our own creation. they usually result from
idolizing a particlar artist or style and becoming trapped with-in those
confines. The problem then becomes one of trying to negate the influence.
Working within the confines of the "bad" influence or trying to negate the
"bad" influence are both wastes of time.

The truely unique "live" 1) and don't bother themselves with 2)

Take care. And try not to think so much. ;-)  --Paul
        

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