I’m pretty sure I’ll be making a habit of posting my live looping experiments as I hopefully get good enough to do them live in front of folks (online or in person). At the very least, I hope this approach to creating is a fruitful way of generating ideas and engaging folks in the creation process.

It’s a challenge for me to keep track of everything for sure. It’s also a challenge for me to develop ideas on the spot quickly. It certainly results in lots of flubs–fingers getting out of position, forgetting what key/mode I was playing in etc. But that’s part of the learning process! And it’s a very good force on the creative process–not overthinking what I’m doing and just putting out ideas. The fact that I’m recording and posting these sessions makes the flubs seem more intimidating than if I were just coming up with ideas. Sharing and accepting the vulnerability that comes from sharing is something I need to normalize as I embrace the full-time artist and musician thing. So, all in all, this live looping thing is great for my growth, I think. It’s really fun, at the very least.

I added an element in this session I left out in my first attempt that I plan to include regularly. That’s spoken word found sound (or field recordings). I included a sound bite from a talk by Vinny Ferraro, a Dharma teacher at Big City Sangha in San Francisco. Vinny titled his talk “Under the Influence of the Hindrances.” In Buddhism, the five hindrances are desire, hate, half-heartedness, worry, and doubt. For all of us, these hindrances prevent clarity of mind and attention to the present moment. Vinny points out that overcoming and transformation come not from fighting against hindrances, whether from ourselves or others, but from relating to them with wisdom and compassion.

In this session, I used the following gear:

• Loopy Pro (on iPad)
• Polyend Play+
• Polyend Tracker Mini
• Hologram Microcosm
• Zoom L6
• Guild Starfire bass
• Northfield Ele-octo octave mandolin
• Epiphone Dot Studio guitar