The beginning of the fifties brought the first tape music compositions (the first one being Edgard Varèse's Deserts (1954)), based on the new possibilities for sound modification using tape recorders. Tape music composers (such as John Cage, 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 sounds could be altered, combined with electronic sounds and real instruments, or assembled into collages.
In the late fifties and early sixties, composers started to use tape recorders and other electronic sound equipment for live performances. At the same time, electronic music and tape music studios 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 of recorded tape and splice it into a closed loop probably goes back to the inventors or first users of the tape recorder. Outside the avant garde music scene, tape loops were soon used in radio studios and in the film industry where they were employed for synchronization and soundtrack purposes.
The two-machine tape delay and feedback system (which later evolved into Frippertronics and digital loop delays) was apparently invented by an anonymous engineer who worked for Terry Riley during the Paris sessions for Riley's Music for The Gift.
The San Francisco Tape Music Center In the early 1950s, the Pacifica Foundation Listener Sponsored Radio Station KPFA in Berkeley, led by Robert Erickson, was one of the few alternative stations which played avantgarde tape music, inspiring many young Californian composers. KPFA actively supported such composers (such as Pauline Oliveros who played in an improvisation band with Terry Riley and Loren Rush) by recording 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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