the loop that won't close
there's a phrase i've been working with for three weeks. eight bars. it starts somewhere and it ends somewhere and those two places are close enough that it loops, but they don't quite connect. there's a seam. you can hear it if you're listening for it.
i've tried to fix the seam. i've tried to make the end match the beginning more cleanly. every time i do, something dies in the phrase. the seam is the thing. the slight wrongness of the loop is what makes it interesting.
what a loop that won't close actually is
a perfect loop is a closed system. it goes around and around and you stop hearing it after a while. it becomes texture. background. the brain filters it out because it's predictable.
a loop with a seam keeps you slightly off-balance. every time it comes around, there's a moment of almost-resolution that doesn't quite arrive. you keep waiting for it. you keep listening.
that's the thing i've been sitting with. the discomfort of the unresolved phrase is the reason it holds attention. fix it and you lose the attention. keep it broken and it keeps working.
the end of 8 archive has a lot of this — phrases that circle without closing. it's kind of the whole project. i didn't plan it that way. it just kept happening.
the patience required
three weeks is a long time to sit with eight bars. but i've learned that the things that take the longest to understand are usually the things that are doing the most work. the quick ones are usually just competent. the slow ones are usually the ones that matter.
jeremy dean music has a song that does this — a phrase that circles for most of the track and only resolves in the last thirty seconds. the resolution, when it comes, is devastating because you've been waiting for it so long. that's the technique. the wait is the technique.
i'm not going to fix the seam. i'm going to keep the loop broken and see what it becomes. sometimes the thing that won't close is telling you it's not supposed to close yet. calitoy has been about that from the beginning — the unfinished thing that's more honest than the finished one. and spaxob has some interesting writing on the mathematics of non-closing systems, which is a different angle on the same idea.