Well, over the course of three days I can safely say that I fell head over heels in love with my violin (again!), found a new love in my loop station and reaffirmed to myself how great it is to collaborate with other artists. A big thank you to Grace Huie Robbins for her fantastic new piece and for taking the time to workshop it with me. Here is a brief overview of the three days:
Day 1: EXCITEMENT!
Most of the day was spent going through all the loop station's effect settings to find out how many interesting noises we could create! So much fun that when we got to working through the 1st movement of the piece, there were cries of "We need more pedals!" to create more than one effect at once. Oh how quickly we were drawn into this world of pedals, effects and making your instrument sound like something completely different to what it is! However, the Lil' Looper does have 12 great effects, which is certainly enough to achieve the sounds that Grace had imagined.
Day 2: APPREHENSION/DREAD
The middle day of the workshop process. The initial excitement had dissipated and it was time to get down to the nitty gritty; how can I actually play and interpret what's written on the page? Movement 2 posed a bit of a challenge in this respect (requiring very precise rhythm) and there was definitely a feeling of "uuuuuuuh is this actually possible?" from the both of us! Then there was the hour long argument with the loop station, which seemed to have a serious glitch when we tried to work in individual mode (the two loops being different lengths and playing back individually). Of course we blamed the equipment! After an hour of testing, re-testing, turning off and on we finally realised the loop station was fine, it was that the phrase we were recording was not long enough the meet the minimum 10 second requirement of the loop record function. Relief mixed with some mild embarrassment as the problem was resolved. And goes to show that writing for a piece of technology rather than just a human with an instrument really does require thinking about things slightly differently. Anyway, a tough day and feeling a little deflated we finally stopped for the night and hoped the rest would resolve a few of the problems.
Day 3: RELIEF and EXCITEMENT (again)!
A good nights sleep and everything fitted back into place on the final day. With only a limited amount of time on day 3 we focused on the most important aspects; getting the right sounds, phrasing and being able to hear how it should fit together (even if I can't quite do it perfectly yet!) Both movements started to sound great and there was a real sense of achievement and excitement about the next steps - practicing for me and some reworking for Grace.
So overall a fantastic few days and I have definitely realised that this Loop Station is not something to take lightly - there is so much to think about aside from playing the right notes at the right time. It really is an unforgiving piece of equipment!
Am hoping to get some sounds and videos up in the near future of my explorations and the next blog will look at what other people are doing with loop stations....until then, here are a few photos of the weekend!
Day 1: EXCITEMENT!
Most of the day was spent going through all the loop station's effect settings to find out how many interesting noises we could create! So much fun that when we got to working through the 1st movement of the piece, there were cries of "We need more pedals!" to create more than one effect at once. Oh how quickly we were drawn into this world of pedals, effects and making your instrument sound like something completely different to what it is! However, the Lil' Looper does have 12 great effects, which is certainly enough to achieve the sounds that Grace had imagined.
Day 2: APPREHENSION/DREAD
The middle day of the workshop process. The initial excitement had dissipated and it was time to get down to the nitty gritty; how can I actually play and interpret what's written on the page? Movement 2 posed a bit of a challenge in this respect (requiring very precise rhythm) and there was definitely a feeling of "uuuuuuuh is this actually possible?" from the both of us! Then there was the hour long argument with the loop station, which seemed to have a serious glitch when we tried to work in individual mode (the two loops being different lengths and playing back individually). Of course we blamed the equipment! After an hour of testing, re-testing, turning off and on we finally realised the loop station was fine, it was that the phrase we were recording was not long enough the meet the minimum 10 second requirement of the loop record function. Relief mixed with some mild embarrassment as the problem was resolved. And goes to show that writing for a piece of technology rather than just a human with an instrument really does require thinking about things slightly differently. Anyway, a tough day and feeling a little deflated we finally stopped for the night and hoped the rest would resolve a few of the problems.
Day 3: RELIEF and EXCITEMENT (again)!
A good nights sleep and everything fitted back into place on the final day. With only a limited amount of time on day 3 we focused on the most important aspects; getting the right sounds, phrasing and being able to hear how it should fit together (even if I can't quite do it perfectly yet!) Both movements started to sound great and there was a real sense of achievement and excitement about the next steps - practicing for me and some reworking for Grace.
So overall a fantastic few days and I have definitely realised that this Loop Station is not something to take lightly - there is so much to think about aside from playing the right notes at the right time. It really is an unforgiving piece of equipment!
Am hoping to get some sounds and videos up in the near future of my explorations and the next blog will look at what other people are doing with loop stations....until then, here are a few photos of the weekend!
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