In The Loop Part 1
GUITAR
Ian Sherwood is an award-winning singer-songwriter and instrumentalist from Halifax . When he ’ s not touring his own music across Canada , the U . K ., and U . S ., he is often on stage as a sax player for other songwriters and bands and doing risky home renovations .
Is it just me , or does it seem that , these days , every musician with $ 400 to burn has a looper of some kind ? The idea of layering your awesome skills one on top of the other to create the most bombastic Michael Jackson cover and becoming a YouTube sensation overnight sounds all too easy and appealing . My gawd , we are in the golden age of technology and aren ’ t we all so clever ?!
History In truth , the act of looping musical ideas is not a new one . Repeated passages of music date back to early classical music . It was the latter half of the 20 th century , however , that saw a welcoming of electronic technology to the stage and with it the doors of endless possibility opened .
In the 1960s , minimalist musician Terry Riley created his “ time lag accumulator ” using two Revox tape machines to play a single closed loop of tape of pre-recorded material . Brian Eno and Robert Fripp ’ s “ Frippertronics ” borrowed from this design and introduced live looping to a whole generation of King Crimson fans . In the 1950s , Les Paul invented a “ little black box ” that he attached to his Gibson and used to record live tracks and overdub them . This is possibly the first use of a live loop the way we know it today . There is speculation , however , that it was all a stage trick and Paul was actually using a tape player backstage to play prerecorded music . We may never know the truth to that one but at the very least , Paul ’ s contribution to the modern idea of looping and its application can ’ t be denied .
Frank Zappa , The Beatles , and Grandmaster Flash all played with live looping and the impression they and their musical techniques made have inspired a new generation of artists like KT Tunstall , tUnEyArDs , Kimbra , and Ed Sheeran .
In The Loop Part 1
The Basics Looping gets a lot of attention – and it ’ s easy to see why . If you ’ re a decent guitar player , why not give the audience more of what you shine at ? Layer a couple of backing tracks , take a solo with yourself , and the response is immediate and clear : Wow , magic ! Perhaps you ’ re a singer . Loop your voice over the chorus of your song and you have instant family harmonies . Crowds will go crazy for that . It ’ s addicting to the performer – and that can be the problem .
Looping appears to be an easy way to get that x-factor into your show with nothing more than the push of a button . In fact , using a looper takes time to master and those who are truly gifted at it are the ones who see it as a tool to embellish an already great song , create a magic moment in the middle of an already killer set , or add an invisible lift to a section of music that leaves the audience asking , “ I don ’ t know what she was doing there , but that sounded great !” Seamless looping takes near perfect time , a steady foot or finger , and a creatively driven mind . With that in place , the possibilities are endless with even the most simple of looping devices .
Getting Started My first experience witnessing live looping was in Toronto at a little club called River on Roncesvales Ave . Guitarist Kevin Barrett was playing a duo gig with singer Julie Michels and , before my eyes , he slipped flawlessly into a solo over his own rhythm playing . I was totally sideswiped ! In that moment , I needed to know what was going on and how he was doing this . By paying careful attention over a few choruses of a well-known standard , I pieced together his punch-in / punch-out points and was able to track the loop . I asked Kevin recently about that gig .
“ I saw [ looping ] as a sort of survival strategy ,” he said . “ The energy would build and build in a song and then stop when
By Ian Sherwood
the guitarist took a solo . Finding a way to keep that energy on a solo show was important .”
Looking back , by looping standards , what he was doing was quite simple . Still , it was seamless in execution and what it did to elevate the song was undeniable . To me , this is the perfect example of what makes looping so amazing . When used as another instrument , it can be one of the greatest tools in your shed .
Used improperly , it can be obnoxious , selfish , and yawn-inducing . Nothing is more annoying than a songwriter who is so engrossed is his own layering that he ’ s forgotten about the people listening and , even worse , the song he ’ s supposed to be singing .
I was once at a gig where a young songwriter spent a good five minutes laying down every sax part to a 32-bar horn solo from his album . The section , which normally should only be heard once and take about 20-30 seconds , was played through again and again as he added the guitar , bari , tenor , second tenor , and alto parts , one after the other ! It took for-EVER and the audience had lost interest long before the end of the layering .
Well , if you haven ’ t already guessed it , I was that songwriter . I learned a valuable lesson that night about looping etiquette – and how to lose your audience and not sell any CDs !
Check the January / February 2016 issue for Part 2 .
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