Into the rarefied air (guitar)
Into The Rarefied Air marked a return to instrument and electronics after a few years of fixed audiovisual work.
Into The Rarefied Air: for electric guitar, drum machine, and computer.
John Thompson: guitar
Before this piece was written, I purchased a Godin guitar with a 13-pin MIDI output. I have never been very impressed with the MIDI capabilities of guitar, mainly due to the lack of sophistication or inventiveness in its use. Disregarding the MIDI capabilities, the guitar is a great guitar to play and well-constructed. In addition to two humbucker pickups, which are kind of standard electric guitar fare, it has piezo pickups built into the bridge (one for each string). You can combine the piezo and humbucker pickups into a a single output. Add in the MIDI output and this guitar has some unique features. While Into The Rarefied Air can be modified to accommodate any electric guitar, it is written specifically for this Godin guitar, for better or for worse!
The 2nd primary source for the piece is the Tempest drum machine, which was developed by Dave Smith and Roger Linn. The drum machine has some analog oscillators and filters, which lends it some contrast to the digital world. The software of the Tempest has a telescoping structure that allows the user to design sounds and the sound processing details of the sounds, then to sequence these sounds into “beats”, and then to sequence those “beats”, etc. In this piece, I push against those constraints and treat this drum machine in a way that was probably not intended by Mr. Smith and Mr. Linn.
The third source for the piece is Native Instrument’s Reaktor, and it takes advantage of the guitar’s MIDI capabilities. In essence, I am using it to increase the timbre pallette available in the piece. The newest iterations of this piece feature that a bit more than the version linked here. Hopefully, a newer version will be recorded soon.
On the guitar, there are some extended techniques employed. These include playing behind the bridge (which becomes more present due to the piezo pickups), bowing the guitar with a violin bow, and using a superball mallet on the strings and the bridge.