Greetings!
Before wizards went to Hogwarts there was a type of experimenting that was left to the one, the only Mr. Wizard - the scientist of my childhood. If you are also a child of the 80s then you likely grew up seeing this show on TV after school. Lucky for us, it’s on Amazon Prime and I am so stoked to watch it with my kids.
The definition of an experiment is: a scientific procedure undertaken to make a discovery, test a hypothesis, or demonstrate a known fact. One of the compelling things about this show was the bold trial and error of "giving it a go”. They didn’t nail it on the first try and Mr. Wizard was often patiently helping the kid in the scene to gain the confidence to experiment as much as he was proving his hypothesis.
I’m no Mr. Wizard, but my true hope and intention with creating this content for you is that you would gain the confidence to experiment in your own practice. Music is a process of discovery much more than a “right or wrong way to do things.” In fact if you are looking for that from me - promptly unsubscribe! I have built and life and career on looking at things upside down.
In this week’s episode of On Looping, I took some time to explore how you can keep your loops from being static and uninteresting via using the Blooper's built in Modifiers (aka effects). These Modifiers allow you to color and transform the loops you create so that you can evolve or even destroy what you originally recorded! This gives us the opportunity to think texturally, emotionally and compositionally with the loops instead of seeing them as only backing tracks.
Let’s keep experimenting! The fear of failure = the death of discovery! When we set aside fear we will surprise ourselves, and this is the birth of new ideas, new growth and confidence as a player. Oh yeah - and FUN!
Back to the lab,
Dan
P.S. If you want to learn more about defeating fear and playing with confidence and joy, join Adam Levy and I for a guitar deep dive on March 8. Sign up here!