A prepared guitar is a guitar which has had its timbre altered by placing various objects on or between the instrument's strings, including other extended techniques. This practice is sometimes called tabletop guitar, because many prepared guitarists do not hold the instrument in the usual manner, but instead place the guitar on a table in order to manipulate it.
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History
Not classified as a "preparation", but more as an extended technique is the slide guitar technique. However, with prepared guitars one of the key goals in preparing the instrument is changing its timbre – the fundamental tone composition of the sound. This is typically achieved by placing objects on or under the strings. The objects can have a tone of their own, like for instance a pencil spring, but can also cause strange string resonance effects or behave like a seesaw and create echoing or buzzing effects after being struck and swinging like a balance. Many of the sounds sound more or less like clocks, bells or Non Western musical instruments or even non string percussion instruments.
Keith Rowe
The method of actually preparing the guitar was developed in the late 1960s by Keith Rowe, in imitation of Jackson Pollock's painting method and John Cage's prepared piano. Rowe developed various prepared guitar techniques: placing the guitar flat on a table and manipulating the strings, body and pickups in unorthodox ways to produce sounds described as dark, brooding, compelling, expansive and alien. He has been known to employ objects such as a library card, rubber eraser, springs, hand-held electric fans, alligator clips, and common office supplies in playing the guitar.
Fred Frith
Another pioneer was Fred Frith. In 1974 he released a solo album called Guitar Solos. The album comprises eight tracks of unaccompanied and improvised music played on prepared guitars by Frith. The album was recorded using a modified 1936 Gibson K-11. Frith added an extra pickup over the strings at the nut, enabling him to amplify sound from both sides of the fretted note. He then split the fretboard in two with a capo, effectively giving him two guitars, each amplified separately, that he could play independently with each hand. To split the sounds further he attached alligator clips at various positions on the strings. The net result was a guitar with multiple sound sources that could be channeled to a mixer and distributed across the stereo soundscape.
Other prepared guitarists
In the 1980s Glenn Branca, Sonic Youth and other experimental art rockers also utilized prepared guitars, as have classical guitarists such as the Elgart/Yates Duo, who have also written a pamphlet on the subject: Prepared Guitar Techniques.
Other contemporary prepared guitar composers/performers include:
- Rajivan Ayyappan, who uses magnets, magnetic heads and tapes and various electronic toys on guitars to generate sound patterns.
- Phillipe Drogoz, who uses wire and knitting needles.
- Stephen Funk Pearson, who uses Bic pens placed underneath the strings at the 12th fret.
- GP Hall (active since the late '60s) who uses a variety of guitars played with implements including psaltery bows, palette knives, electric fans and razors, wind-up toys, velcro and crocodile clips (Some of Hall's techniques are similar to Keith Rowe's methods but are applied to a much more melodic compositional and improvisational style)
- Martin Irigoyen and Erik Sanko, both of whom use electronic devices, hand ventilators, walkie-talkies, paper clips, aluminum foil, credit cards and tweezers.
- Nikita Koshkin, who uses cork, matches and foam mutes.
- Micachu, who uses unorthodox instruments which are sometimes customised or even homemade. These included a modified guitar played with a hammer action, called a 'chu'. Another short scaled children guitar has an additional third bridge right next to the sound hole which shortens the scale length leading to an alternate microtonal division of the fret intervals.
- Hans Tammen, who uses the Endangered guitar.
- These Are Powers, who use a bass guitar with a rod placed between the strings and the body to shorten the string length as well as playing behind that additional bridge like a tailed bridge guitar.
- Joss Lucio, who uses pens, chopsticks, and loose guitar strings. [1]
Custom made instruments
Beginning in the 1970s, guitarist and luthier Hans Reichel made some unusual guitars with third bridge-like qualities.
Bradford Reed (pencilina), Glenn Branca, Fred Frith and the band Neptune also made other individually different types of experimental third bridge guitars. Yuri Landman derived a just intoned musical scale from an initially considered atonal prepared guitar playing technique based on adding a third bridge under the strings. He constructed an instrument called the Moodswinger with this scale. When this bridge is positioned in the noded positions of the harmonic series the volume of the instrument increases and the overtone becomes clear and has a consonant relation to the complementary opposed string part creating a harmonic multiphonic tone[1].
See also
- Electroacoustic improvisation
- Experimental musical instrument
- Prepared music
- Prepared piano
- String resonance
Prepared guitar luthiers
Famous prepared guitar players
in alphabetic order:
- Derek Bailey
- Glenn Branca
- Fred Frith
- GP Hall
- Bill Horist
- Martin Irigoyen
- Nikita Koshkin
- Yuri Landman
- Thurston Moore
- Lee Ranaldo
- Keith Rowe
- Marc Ribot
- Hans Tammen
Literature
- Prepared Guitar Techniques - Matthew Elgart/Peter Yates (Elgart/Yates Guitar Duo) ISBN 0-939297-88-4, California Guitar Archives, 1990 [2]
References
- ^ 3rd Bridge Helix by Yuri Landman on furious.com
External links
- Guide How to Prepare a Guitar on hypercustom.com
- FredFrith.com Official homepage.
- www.pencilina.com, Bradford Reed's home page
- rajivan.com Rajivan Ayyappan homepage.
- tammen.com Hans Tammen homepage.
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