Terry Riley's In C is a piece for an unspecified ensemble where players loop sections of music.  There are 53 sections. The players can decide for how long they play each section .  They can drop in and out bur are asked to listen to each other and not get too far behind or ahead.   I've played this piece at least twice.  Here is a great version by Bang On A Can.  Sounds great.

This is some audio from one of my recent projects.  I visited Lancaster University to take part in a Situated Composition Symposium.  The composition below was time limited.  I recorded sounds around the Campus.  I also did some voice recordings -  reading out the place names I saw while walking.  Therefore the composition is situated and relevant to the buildings and grounds of the campus.   The output has just been posted on Soundcloud.  There is also a journal of the proceedings here. 

Still on the looping theme, this is what I am listening tonight before going out to play violin.  Great track from the album Kosmicher Pitch.  Enjoy.

I have been thinking about repetition and looping recently as a compositional tool.  The best tracks that use looping, use reputation with variations.  Think of the minimalists, for example Steve Reich and his piece Music for 18 Musicians.   Listen to the start (its an hour long).  

The piece I was listening to today was This place in Time by Colleen.  What a gorgeous track for strings.  Only just over 2 minutes long. The melody is basically four repeating notes - that's all.  In fact it could be two notes which are then transposed down to give four.  However, if you listen attentively, there are variations all the way through.  These come from the harmony, the instrumentation, the texture and tempo (which slows) about half way through.  Less is more with this piece.  Lovely.

Finally, here is another great track featuring looping, Rockslide by Andrew Pekler. I hope you enjoy these.

I had a very interesting day at Lancaster University yesterday hearing about situated composition.  The speakers were:

Ximena Alarcón – UK-based Colombian sound artist and research fellow (UAL, CRiSAP – Creative Research into Sound Arts Practice)
Owen Chapman – Canadian sound artist, DJ, Associate Professor in Sound Production and Scholarship (Concordia University, Montreal)
Ron Herrema – UK-based American freelance composer, multimedia artist, and app developer
Linda O’Keeffe – UK-based Irish sound artist, Lecturer in Sound (Lancaster Institute for the Contemporary Arts)
Jen Southern – UK artist, Lecturer in Fine Art, Director Mobilities Lab (Lancaster University)
Samuel Thulin – Canadian sound artist and Visiting Researcher (Centre for Mobilities Research, Lancaster University)
Matt Wand – UK Sound artist, freelance producer, sound designer, and music label owner

Check out their work.  
During the afternoon, there was an opportunity to record sounds around the campus and to compose a brief piece.  Despite the fact that I use an Apple Mac Pro and iMac,  I don't actually possess an iPad.  However, I had a chance to use one and had fun exploring the apps - especially Borderlands and Samplr.  Very easy to use.  I now want one...

I am going to a  one day workshop on creative sonic futures featuring presentations by 7 international researcher-practitioners working in the areas of sound, music, and mobile and locative media, followed by hands-on experimentation with the emerging concept and practice of situated composition.
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Sound production and composition are increasingly taking place in a broad array of situations outside of well-established studio environments. New possibilities are emerging for people with widely varying levels of expertise to work with sound in an unprecedented range of contexts facilitated by the growing accessibility and mobility of sound tools, such as digital audio recorders, smart phones, and tablets. “Situated composition” describes these developments, and draws attention to the situatedness of all sound production and compositional processes. It also serves as a concept for thinking through the multiple interrelated conditions that foster and arise from creative sound practices, including the mixture of material, social, virtual and digital elements that continuously co-compose one another.