Our lives with the electric guitar. It is such a small sound world we involve ourselves with as classical guitarists. It is small but surely sufficient for expression of highly complex music but music is one thing and "sound world" is another.

What the difference between sound world and music is the same difference between order and chaos.

Should chaos be allowed to exist in the mechanism of ordered music I don't know but aleotoric passages have been incorporated into highly ordered compositions. This may be in some opinions "artificial" but isn't serial music in essence "artificial" in-so-far as it doesn't rely on the natural order of overtones that generate tonality? Isn't the tempered clavier or anything other than natural intonation artificial?

There is nothing more chaotic than a vibrating string or a column of air. A piano has a vibrating string but there is a mechanistic way of addressing it. An organ has a vibrating column of air but it is also addressed mechanistically.
A vibrating string on a guitar is not mechanistically addressed. There are infinite ways of addressing the string and ways to continue addressing it after the initial ictus has happened.

With this in mind we as guitarists have a unique position in the musical and sound world.Moving from the acoustic instrument to the electric version, we as string manipulators have a very serious sound world to deal with. Representing the sound world is a lowly vibrating string, primitive and limited in scope still on the electric guitar and amplifier.

In my last years at California Institute of the Arts my attention turned to the vibrating string as a method of accessing signal processing. The sonorous qualities of the vibrating string, the multiplicity of ways to "prepare" the string, both on the fly and preconceived is truly infinite. Chaos is infinite, order is not.

Needing an outlet, in the educational sense for my multi-focus requirements, I chose to work with a particular dancer's master thesis in order to test only a small part of the chaotic world of sound and order it in time.

At CALARTS processors were available, I worked particularly with Lexicon and computer programming but the latter was only a way to order sounds found by experimentation.

This process is similar to the original Musique Concrete methods of the French Radio experimentation. The only difference is the actors being newer technology.

What goes up must go logarithmically down.

We are in the habit of dampening the one end of the vibrating string. We don't even think about it. We fret a 6th string at the 7th and a length of string is dampened from the finger to the nut. We dampen this especially if it is on a wound string.

We hammer a bass note with our left hand and another note appears as noise from the fret to the nut. It is in a logarithmic inversion of the note from the fret to the bridge.

I have written some classical guitar pieces the utilize this inverse pitch and I call this a "backtone." On the classical guitar it is plenty loud enough and quite descernable depending on how much you allow of the note. It also adds to the sonority of the "forwardtone" and imbues it with a pinched and nasal quality.

Fashioning a nut from transducer material I was able to activate this backtone on an electric guitar and this is where the backtone turns into an entity in itself.

Besides the pitch itself the backtone really activated my processor in a very cogent way. I had simply wired it separately and ran it into a board accessing the same processor I used for my pickups.
It was quite amazing how the backtone, that pasty and nasal sound of a transducer made whatever effect in the processor I used, jump out in a very useful way. It added another dimension of shimmer to the effects with higher harmonics.

Now I have a Brian Moore guitar with a piezo tailpiece. The transducer sits at the other end of the string and the effect of the backtone is weaker but the overall effect of accessing processors is quite better with the stronger signal.

I process the piezo through a parametric equalizer and run this into a Digitech TSR-24 processor while using a TSR-12 for the pickups. It is quite spectacular since I have a two octave pitch shift on both units and my use of this is quite extensive with constant control pedals.

The guitar is now possibly the most powerful sound making device, far superior to the synthesizer as this is a vibrating string and not something that is not accessible beyond the program.

I am taking my rig and possibly a few other musicians to the Y2K4 Looper's Festival in Santa Cruz on October 9th. By that time I will have purchased a Gibson Echoplex loop sampler as now I have a Digitech GNX3 that has a built in looper but is couples with amp modeling that I strive to get rid of in the mix.

Kevin Gallagher

Kevin Gallagher is one of my favorite classical guitarists of all time. His Naxos recording is one of the best early music recordings for me. When Kevin, in 1999, announced to me that he is now addressing the electric guitar I was very interested to hear what he had to say.

His kind of musicianship is rare and the spiritual nature of his recording of early music made me even more interested.

Kevin's interest in the electric guitar is sort of like mine. We both started on the electric and later went to classical. He as well as I never stopped, at least, thinking about the electric but we both had all of our attention to the mastery of the classical.

I was alerted, by Anthony Glise, that Kevin was to headline the St. Joseph International Guitar Festival and I asked to attend as a fly on the wall. I ended up also adjudicating the performance contest. Not a thing that I condone but I was among very learned and comfortable co-judges so I thought I'd give it a go. Never mind this. Contest are for race horses.

N.M. - What do you see as the future of the electric guitar in this setting?

K.G. - I see the electric guitar being used more as an ensemble instrument than a solo instrument although I do think it can work beautifully as a solo instrument. Even for my own style, I don't want to play only solos. I see concertos being written in the future, large ensemble pieces etc. It's already happened in some regard, but it hasn't hit the "mainstream" yet. Like the classical guitar, it will take years of developing a repertoire for it to become more acceptable through arrangements and commissions. I also hope that composers will write for other modern ensembles - such as rock bands, turntableists, etc. but the performers have to appear on the scene first. It's the chicken and egg problem. Performers haven't appeared because there are few compositions, and composers won't write the compositions because there are few performers available.

N.M - How hard is it to find new music for the electric guitar?

K.G. - It is very hard to find music I want to play. There are some great pieces written by now, but some other works have the "electric guitar academy syndrome" as I call it. What I mean is - a composer writes a piece for electric guitar but he doesn't want people to think he writes "rock" music, so he writes something which is devoid of any popular idiomatic electric guitar sounds or technique. I tend to play music which has recognizable electric guitar sounds. I think it's very important for the audience and for myself.

The other problem is that most composers don't really have the sound of the electric guitar in their heads unless they have played it. Since the electric guitar has been considered an "improvisational" instrument for so long, composers haven't studied the sounds and techniques the way they have with most concert instruments - even classical guitar. So, they are intimidated by it. There are some great composers out there - Nick Didkovsky, Scott Johnson, Steve Mackey, and others. I assume in the future there will be more composers for it as performers become more common.

N.M - Do we want to call it classical electric guitar or what? (I guess this is the same old question regarding post modern "sound world" stuff)

K.G. - I don't know.....concert electric guitar? Interpretive electric guitar? It can be just electric guitar as well.

N.M - What do you bring from your fabulous classical guitar playing to the electric guitar?

K.G. - What I do is really a mix of classical guitar and electric guitar techniques. That's exactly who I am. I started on electric, switched to classical and now I combine them. I do all the same interpretive work as I did before with the classical guitar, but I'm dealing with different colors. For example, when I'm wanting a sound which is dreamy and distant, I will bring up the delay or reverb settings - as well as play quietly and fluidly. When I need a dolce sound, I use the neck pickup. When I want a loud sound, I'll dial in some distortion. I view music the same way, but the colors and possibilities are different depending on the piece. Of course, the techniques of relaxation and efficient left hand principles are used. I also spend about 40% of each program playing with my fingers or with fingers and pick together, so the tone production from my nails still has to be strong, clear and well-voiced.

N.M - I asked Kevin to outline his program from the St. Joseph International Festival.

K.G. -The concert program was music influenced from both the Baroque period and the contemporary pop/rock world. The first half was "music from the quasi-baroque."

Nick Didkovsky's "I kick my hand" has interaction between bass and melody similar to the way Bach would imply bass and melody within one line. To highlight the melody and bass interaction, I use the BM guitar to add octaves to only the 5th and 6th strings while the others are left at normal pitch. The piece also has a looped bass line in the middle which is improvised over. To me it's another veiled baroque idea (like a chaconne or passacaglia).

The second piece originally for classical guitar was Dusan Bogdonovic's "Introduction and Passacaglia on the Golden Flower". In this piece, the baroque connotations are clear. It is one of the few pieces I perform which was taken from the classical guitar repertoire, simply because I feel that the piece sounds beautiful on the electric guitar. Usually, classical guitar pieces don't work so well on the electric, but this one does. Again, I use the Roland VG-88 and BM guitar to pitch shift bass notes at the climax to get a more "orchestral sound."

The last pieces from the "quasi-baroque" was Scott Johnson's "epiphany machine." The piece was written with the idea of having a separate bass, middle and upper voice throughout- much like a classical guitar piece. Scott had been studying a bit of classical guitar and got the idea for this work from studying Bach's Lute Suites. The whole work is written with a delayed harmonizer in 4ths (supplied by the Roland VG-88. It's got a kind of 1980's "Police" vibe to it, so I used my strat in the F+C position to try and get that Andy Summers' shimmer.

The second half "music from the avante rock" were pieces directly or indirectly written with a rock or pop sensibility.

Phillip Rosheger's "Elegy for Marianne" is a beautiful classical guitar tremolo piece originally. My electric guitar version uses a short stereo delay to enhance the tremolo effect. I play against the delay to make the lines seamless. It's got a beautiful melody and is the most "song-like" of the pieces I play. It has a "contemporary pop ballad" sound to it.

"Urban Mosaics" was written for me last year by my good friend Marco Oppedisano. The piece is in 4 movements and pays homage to the urban area of New York/New Jersey where both he and I grew up. It explores a wide variety of electric guitar techniques i.e. plectrum, ebow, pedal volume swells, feedback, looping, and right hand fingerstyle technique. The first movement is all about "clanging" sounds and is played entirely above the nut. The second consists of long dynamic lines and employs the use of ebow and fingerstyle technique. The third movement is a fast rock guitar solo. The last movement is dreamy and involves pedal steel effects. The BM guitar is indispensable for this music because I use the controllers on the body of the guitar to change sounds. At times, I'm turning on a delay with the volume knob, other times the pickup selector turns on a pitch shifter. To do that with pedals alone would be very cumbersome.

The last piece, GRAB IT by Jacob Ter Veldhuis is the most "rock guitar" sounding piece I play. Based on samples of prisoners speaking to juvenile delinquents, it requires me to perform with a tape of the prisoners speaking (and shouting!) The guitar and spoken word are together for most of the music in a kind of fragmented "rap" style. Jacob had originally written this piece for saxophone but when I heard it, I knew it would work as funk/rock guitar piece. I added bits to the single sax line to try and make it more like a Hendrix rhythm guitar part. He told me that he likes the electric guitar version better, so I'm very happy to have arranged it. It's one of the most powerful pieces of music I've ever played.

N.M - So the m.f., in "Grab It" is a cogent pseudo word. How do you present this piece to a church of extremely liberal christians or even, if you don't think you would go that far, present it to a Unitarian Universalist congregation? I do consider that you already did present this to a similar crowd in St. Joe.

K.G. - I guess I would have to reconsider playing this piece at the more conservative venues. When I played recently in Vermont at an upscale college, the audience was scared to death I think. People didn't even want to talk with me about it. Complete shock. I will have to explain it fully even at the moderately conservative venues - warn them of what the subject matter is. In New York or Amsterdam, this kind of thing is already accepted, so there is no problem. The urban areas are more cutting edge for art. I'm hoping with time, these artistic tendencies will filter out to the world.

N.M - I have to say that this piece was stunning! The use of the word M.F. has a strong rhythmic profile and the composer chopped it in may interesting rhythmic ways.

N.M - So go on about your experience with the BM guitar. What modifications have you done to it and why did you pick that brand?

K.G. - I chose the BM guitar because I wanted to be able to have a VERY wide variety of sounds for electric guitar interpretations without having to change too many guitars on stage. With the BM guitar, I can get a les paul type of sound, a strat type of sound, a piezo acoustic sound, a synth sound (with the Roland VG-88) - and then they can all be mixed together. Also, with the BM guitar, it sends out midi information, so I can turn on a delay, or increase distortion from the guitar without using pedals. So, flexibility in color and control was the prime importance in buying the guitar. I haven't modified it at all. I just brought down the pickups to make them a little less "hot". I also use heavier strings and a higher action than how it was sent to me.

N.M - With modeling amps, you'll have a tendency to get cookie cutter sounds. Explain your process of individuating the sound and effects?

K.G. - I agree that modeling amps are not the best way to get electric guitar sounds as of right now. I'm looking for a way to have a setup which can be controlled via midi while keeping the tube amp tone intact. I think that it will be a hybrid between the digital world and the analogue world. For now I use the VG-88 for most live playing because it's so flexible with the BM guitar. All the sounds I program myself. I don't use presets. I learned a lot about the VG-88 by studying other people's patches and seeing how they adjusted the settings. I recommend to anyone trying out a machine as deep as a VG-88 to study the patches by others. It's another instrument in itself. My own sounds are based completely on the composition at hand. If I feel that the composition is helped by adding chorus, then I will add it. If I feel that the piece is dark in mood, then the color of the distortion will be dark. This is very much like how I approach classical guitar. I don't try to play a classical guitar piece with my own "special sound". I just try to make the coloration match the composition's mood.

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