Looptober means…

Last month was Looptober.

Looptober is a word I coined for the month of October when I perform at as many Loopfests as time and invitation allow. My mom and daughter accompany me on these mini-tours — it has become a family tradition of sorts.

A ‘Loopfest’ is a music festival that features musicians from all over the world who are not united by a specific style (genre) of music — instead, they share only the common ground of using ‘looping’ technology in their musical performance. Some use hardware loopers, others use software loopers, some use a combination of both.

A ‘looper’ allows a musican (or vocalist) to record a portion of their musical composition and then play it back, subsequently adding layers to that phrase (loop) to build their composition. There are many musical styles presented at these festivals including; ambient, avant-garde, noise, free-form jazz, phrase-based (song style), electronic, found sound, beatboxing, aleatoric, improvisation, minimalism — just about any approach to music can be expressed through looping.

There is a distinction between ‘looping’ and ‘live looping’ — that basically being that ‘looping’ can be presented using pre-recorded material and/or samples, whereas ‘live looping’ is presented with all elements being created and recorded at the time of the performance.

I’ve performed in Loopfests in Seattle (WA), Portland (OR), Ashland (OR) Danville (CA), Santa Cruz (CA)and Long Beach (CA). This year, my schedule only allowed for performances in Santa Cruz and Long Beach.

I’ve been honored by invitation to perform in Santa Cruz at the Y2K International Live Looping Fests by Rick Walker, who is an amazingly talented musician and one of the original loopers from the beginning of loopfesting. You can find a brief summation of the origins and reach of loopfests here: http://y2kloopfest.com/about/.

The West Coast USA satellite loopfests are produced by another amazing and talented musician, Noah Peterson, who has honored me by inclusion in several of his west coast loopfests.

There are loopfests all over the world, produced by artists, fans and patrons — a quick search on Facebook will reveal many of these festivals.

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There are also several Facebook groups focused on looping, most notably is Loopers Delight on Facebook, which also runs an email listserv at: http://www.loopers-delight.com/list/LoopList.html as part of the original Loopers Delight site created by Kim Flint in 1996.

On the Loopers Delight site, you’ll find:
1. Loopers of the World: an extensive listing of artists who use looping
2. Looping Tools and Instruments: hardware and software looping tools
3. Tips and Tricks
4. Loop History
5. Mailing List Archive
and several other pages of resources related to looping.

There is also the site Live Looping, started in 2011, which is a regularly updated resource for live looping gigs, musicians, methods, looping tools, looping history and concepts, links and more. The Facebook group for Live Looping is also a valuable resource and network.

The spirit of family and mutual respect that is fostered by Rick, Noah and all the hosts of the global fests is further perpetuated by those who work at and those who play at the fests. The sense of community and camaraderie is like nothing I’ve ever experienced in my many years as an artist and musician.

In the near future, I plan on writing more about these festivals and the folks who support, produce and perform at them. At the moment, I am leaving my 2nd job to head off to my study group, as currently my time only allows short entries here.

I’d like to include a cool photo taken of me by the wonderfully talented Michael Bearpark at this year’s fest in Santa Cruz. I’d also like to include a clip from my YouTube page, one of my first live looping compositions and the song that inspired another amazing musician, Ted Killian, to suggest I inquire about invitation to the festivals.

The video is of my song ‘Happy Hands’ which I dedicate to my dog, Kosh, who is pictured with me in the drawing by my daughter, Jazmyn, on my profile page here

So a quick thanks, to Rick, Noah, Ted, Marji, Jazmyn and Michael. And a big sloppy, loopy hug to all those I’ve met on the Looptober Trail.

Until next post…