a look at 'Morning Drive'

'Morning Drive' was my first attempt at loop-based composition. A few years back, I was playing around with some of the loops that shipped with my sequencer software, just to see what all the fuss was about. I really had never tried loop-based composing before. The obvious advantage of using loops is that you can come up with something that sounds pretty good, pretty quickly. Using them is sure easier than constructing the same basic musical elements from scratch. But loops can also be a disadvantage too, as they can really restrict you creatively and force you in certain harmonic and rhythmic directions. But alas, then the challenge is not just leaving it there, but making it your own - which fosters a great deal of creative sweat while working within such narrow parameters.

In 'Morning Drive', the drums, bass, guitar, strings and other minor parts were constructed from short 1 or 2-bar audio clips that I spliced together to simulate a live rhythm section. I went for as much variation as possible. For example, if you compare the two 'break' sections, you can hear two very different approaches - the first one being very straight and the second a bit more on the wild side. After I had worked out the nuances of the rhythmic bed and structure, I then wrote the brassy block chords and organ lines (with a fun solo at the end :-) that were played on top of everything.

In general I think loops are overused in commercial music. Especially in modern electronica, where the audio-collage composition is getting old and boring. But loops can make a great starting point to develop fully-realized compositional ideas, which is what I did in 'Morning Drive'. And I have used this approach with loops in other pieces I've done since.

By the way, 'Morning Drive' is radio jargon that refers to 'drive time'. In this case, the idea was to come up with a peppy, energizing rock groove to accompany the morning commute to work that most of us unfortunately have to make each day.

Listen to Morning Drive