THE HISTORY OF LOOPING
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The beginning of the fifties brought the first tape musiccompositions (the first one being Edgard Varèse's Deserts(1954)), based on the new possibilities for sound modificationusing tape recorders. Tape music composers (such as JohnCage, Edgard Varèse, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Mauricio Kagel,and others) used tape recorders to change the speed of sounds,or reverse, edit, and superimpose them. Pre-existing soundscould be altered, combined with electronic sounds and realinstruments, or assembled into collages.In the late fifties and early sixties, composers started to use taperecorders and other electronic sound equipment for liveperformances. At the same time, electronic music and tape musicstudios were founded in several cities (such as Paris and Cologne)and became important centers for the new music.The origin of tape loops is not entirely clear. There is no known"inventor" of this technique, but the simple idea to take a piece ofrecorded tape and splice it into a closed loop probably goes backto the inventors or first users of the tape recorder. Outside theavant garde music scene, tape loops were soon used in radiostudios and in the film industry where they were employed forsynchronization and soundtrack purposes.The two-machine tape delay and feedback system (which laterevolved into Frippertronics and digital loop delays) was apparentlyinvented by an anonymous engineer who worked for Terry Rileyduring the Paris sessions for Riley's Music for The Gift.The San Francisco Tape Music CenterIn the early 1950s, the Pacifica Foundation Listener SponsoredRadio Station KPFA in Berkeley, led by Robert Erickson, was oneof the few alternative stations which played avantgarde tape music,inspiring many young Californian composers. KPFA activelysupported such composers (such as Pauline Oliveros who playedin an improvisation band with Terry Riley and Loren Rush) byrecording and presenting their work.In 1960, KPFA director Erickson began organizing composers' work-shops at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. A year later,participants of these workshops (Ramon Sender and Morton Subotnick)founded the San Francisco Tape Music Center.- This is an exerpt from The Birth of Loop written by Michael Peters.Thanks to Loopers-delight.com for posting it on their website.
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