my approach to ambient looped guitar

In my last post, i mentioned that the individual pieces are often improvised during the recording process. But, i also want to preserve a similarity between pieces composed with the same "recipe." If you've listened to multiple albums, you most likely thought that, for example, save us from someone, dreaming down a half-step, and the whole sounds you can make album all sound very similar. Part of that similarity is harmonic, but part of it is also their shared method of construction. I use a lot of variation within the process, but the overall recipe is always the same:

1 - choose a complex sonority (a chord, or a cluster of notes that form a harmonic backdrop), and a scale or mode to work from over that sonority

2 - create a looped background (usually non-metrical and impossible to tell where the loop point actuall is; unless there is a consistent rhythmic phrase like morning coffee or girl with the pearl)

3 - improvise one or more lead parts over that background loop.

If you opened most any of my ardour sessions you would most often find only 2 tracks: "rhythm" and "lead." Some of the looped pieces are 1 continuous take (built from the ground up all in one go), but that can be really frustrating on bad days, so i generally build a "rhythm track" then solo over it.

For me at least, i find the first thing that comes out of my head and fingers is the most interesting/pleasing/creative thing to work with, whereas laboring over an idea or structure in a more traditional way produces boring predictable music that i am less likely to actually finish. If nothing is flowing, i just walk away and come back later.

All of this is not to say that i sit down at the computer and noodle around for 45 minutes and mix every sound i produce down into a mindless 3 minute track. Rather, i compose and edit the same way anyone would, i just try to condense that process into a short and efficient workflow that eliminates all of the second guessing or needless sound tweaking. Sometimes the results are mediocre, terrible, or fantastic, but my goal is to finish the piece as quickly as possible, not to be the most awesome artist/guitar player/composer ever.
I make a plan, i execute it as best as i can, and i let the end result be what it is: eventually everything finds or inspires a suitable context for itself.

Some tracks come together right away, some take multiple sessions, or mulriple days. I've found myself in the middle of recording 8 or 9 different things at the same time, and feeling very lost. So, my only goal is to try to finish 1 thing every session (i could have anywhere from 1 to 8 or 12 sessions in a single day). The "thing" could be coming up with a catchy riff, creating a looped background, recording two bars of a solo line, mixing two or three parts, whatever. Once that thing is finished i either walk away, or move on to another thing i know i can finish. I never waste time on sething that just isn't clicking, and it lets me get a lot more done. Whether it's "good" or other people like it isn't really the point.