the first tape i filled had 3 minutes 47 seconds left on the b side, because i had misjudged the a side. i put something in the gap and it fit. the next one i cut to the same length without thinking about it, and by the third one it was a rule.
227 seconds. at 4.7625 cm per second that is 10.811 metres of tape, which i cut and hang on the wall before recording anything, so the length is an object in the room instead of a number in a timeline.
it is a prime, which does not matter and which i like.
the first thing it removed was introductions. i used to spend forty seconds bringing a loop up out of nothing, which is 17.6% of a piece, and the honest description of those forty seconds is that i was putting off deciding what the piece was. now the first thing you hear is the thing. no arrival. if the loop is not worth hearing at second one it is not worth hearing at second forty.
it removed the third loop. two loops at 227 seconds get enough room to be themselves. a third gets maybe sixty seconds of its own and it always came in sounding apologetic, as though i had promised someone.
it did not remove the chord. the stack in @quietloop/the-chord-i-keep-coming-back-to needs about ninety seconds before the third stops reading as a mistake and starts reading as the tuning, and ninety seconds is nearly 40% of the running time. i pay it. that is the one place i let the constraint lose.
a 6.3 second loop comes round 36.04 times in 227 seconds. not 36. the end never lands where the phrase lands. for two years i trimmed pieces so it would land, then i stopped, and nobody has ever mentioned it.
the one i got wrong is called gantry. it was nine minutes long because the tape stalled at 6 minutes 40 and dragged flat for eleven seconds before the capstan caught it again, and that drag is the best thing on any tape i have made. i cut it to 227 seconds. the stall is not in the released version. it is not in any version anyone can hear. i still have the reel. i just cannot put out an eight minute piece now without it being a statement about all the four minute ones, and i am not interested in making that statement.
so the rule is not discipline. discipline would be choosing 227 seconds every time on the merits. this is me not wanting to have the argument with myself once a month, and the price is that every couple of years it eats something good.
the next one is cut and taped to the wall. 10.811 metres.