Here are the loop jams I captured from the second half of the month of November.
Loop 9
Another slow warbly jam. The main thing that sticks out to me is that little pinky add whatever walk down, and then making sure I traced over that with the lead layer.
Loop 10
This one starts unassuming. I do like the extra sauce on that bass tone, just the right amount of crunch. But once I had a core frame and could jam, I really like the melody that I slotted in there. It’s not complicated. But it felt just right. Just the right rhythm and momentum. One of my favorite jams.
Loop 11
So much phaser vibes at the start, wow. But once the bass comes in this one is fire. Totally creates a momentum forward with those double beats. With the frame in place it’s easier to layer a lead line on top that feels like it can say something
Loop 12
I’m pretty sure I started with “Brass in Pocket” in mind for this one. Took subsections of its chords, played to a different rhythm. But once I added that repetitive percussive bit on top it found its own 80’s vibe and was off to the races. It feels like the lead line is singing something, which is what I’m always looking for. I love the part at the end after a couple repeats where the lead line gets extra syncopated and rhythmic for a bit. It feels like cheating to start heavily inspired by a song and then say it’s one of your favorite jams, but… this one was super fun, and I think its own thing.
Loop 13
More jazzy shell chords, more saucy bass tone. I only had like 5 minutes to play for this one, between plans for the evening. So this was a delightfully fast slapdash jam. At the end there is me literally nodding “Yep, I know, time to stop and do the thing we agreed on.”
Loop 14
What a strong start. That bass line grooves. Just some simple funky chords on top, a bit of phase. I was cycling some parts out of my pedal board, so this was a moment to bring in the Big Muff and try pushing something to the background a bit. It works for me.
Loop 15
An acoustic jam that emerged when playing around with DADGAD tuning. The holding of the keyboard for the camera cracks me up. As does the unforgiving winter daytime lighting, variable and harsh. Don’t mind how everything goes dark. Watching things back, it strikes me again how differently I handle the acoustic from the electric.
Loop 16
Nobody in the house? Horn time. Bouzouki time. Singing time? I had a mic set up for the acoustic guitar, but realized I had loaned out my second microphone that could be at, you know, mouth level. So… I had fun with it.
Here are the loop jams I captured from the first half of the month of November.
Loop 1
I watched a video on “shell chords” and then wanted to go make some stuff up with a bunch of sevenths and a jazzy feel. I don’t bring my tiny organ keyboard out enough, but it felt like the right tone for this.
Loop 2
I was supposed to learn “Lifeboy,” a song with a finger picking style. I started with learning the chords, but instead of learning the rest I took those chords abstractly out of context and built a loop on that. All acoustic, because that’s fun; gotta bring in the bouzouki! Although I didn’t keep that layer for the loop. It was taking up too much sonic space for the lead on top of it. This is a great example of where a many channel looper would be helpful so I could turn on and off many things independently.
Loop 3
Slow patient tremolo chords, the bass emphasizing a beat, all of this is a safe place for me at this point. I added some delay and crunchy for the top layer of noodles. I’m not sad about it.
Loop 4
This is such a loop. By which I mean it’s exactly the sort thing happens when you have an idea, you throw it in, and see if it all sticks. It’s kind of a goofy one. Hard to explain why I feel that. I do like when the lead layer gets a bit saucy towards the end.
Loop 5
It’s hard to make loops that involve delay and rhythm. You can get a delay repeat pace that you like, but syncing it up with the rhythm (even with tap tempo) doesn’t always retain the thing about the repeats that was working for you. But I’m working on it. There’s an emotion in this core loop that I really like. And it created a very pleasant groove to play over. It’s a slow burn to get there, but it’s a good pocket.
Loop 6
I remember being stuck in a loop on top of this loop, working out a melody that I liked over the base. That base is so moody and modulated, kind of floaty.
Loop 7
I was in a contemplative place and wanted to slap on the big atmospheric reverb and do something outside of rhythm. And just lean into imperfection.
Loop 8
I’ve been trying out something where I take a song and reenvision it into a loop with a different arrangement, rhythm, whatever. Not trying to do a cover, but use it as a seed and see where it takes me. In this case it was “Slow Burn” by Kacey Musgraves. Which features an acoustic guitar and a wispy strumming pattern. It’s all beautiful, really. I wanted different, so you get this warbletron electric version of the core chords. Instead of singing I wanted to bring in that excellent melodic hook into a guitar voice. The source of inspiration here is better of course, but this was fun.
Here are the loop jams I captured from the month of October.
Loop 1
A riff based start, where has no grounding until the chords come in. It’s not quite a pedal tone because it’s not static, but has that feeling of one line providing all of the color for the other. In this case made it a bit hard to provide a lead line on top of the riff.
Loop 2
This starting riff feels like a pretty standard noodle for me. What next? The next layer, which chorus, is slightly overlapping the measure which is easy on the looper but was way more awkward to chop in the video. Regardless, the end result, funky. But once we get to the lead layer I was really feeling the swagger on this one.
Loop 3
Let’s not overthink the chord progression. Sometimes we don’t need complicated. Standard progression, tremolo go. I like how it keeps it interesting at the end of the loop, creating a bit of tension before it repeats. And that was enough to create a framework for what felt like a pretty fun jam.
Loop 4
I get full up on electric and need to go back to all acoustic. I play differently. The start here is very loopy to me. Just an idea, throw it into a loop and see what happens. The extra layer is where it can have some emotion and something to say.
Loop 5
A simple chord progression with tremolo. The bass line created the real foundation, that’s where most of the motion comes from. That foundation was what the lead parted needed to echo off of. I was happy with the vocal/emotive playing on top of this one, and how long it held up exploring that simple idea.
Loop 6
This one didn’t really come through until the lead section. The chord progression I think was from a song someone asked me to learn, but then I wanted to take it in a different direction. I no longer know what the song was. Anyway, what I started with here is fine; unremarkable. But I felt like the soul really only came in with the solo on top. I’m always trying to play melodically and not just “noodle,” and this one felt like it was saying something.
Loop 7
I had no idea where I wanted to take this loop. But I wanted moody distortion. So that’s what I did on top. No solo, just noise.
Loop 8
That’s a Q-tron envelope filter. Then some western-sounding big tremolo chords on top. Sure, why not?
Loop 9
I started with a more opinionated base layer. That means whatever is played on top as a “lead” layer needs to fit, and be a little more spacious. When it works well it works, this one is… reasonable.