According to Soviet electrical engineer Theremin, there is music in the ether. It is to be found in our relationships with machine, within our movements, indeed within the air itself. The eponymous instrument that he invented bears this philosophy.
Sound and noise have been found in a variety of sources. Ike Turner found them in an amplifier that fell off the back of a truck. Brian Wilson found them in the combination of instruments playing the same notes. Brian Eno found them in the oddities of synthesizers and recording equipment. Andy Summers found them in a collage of chorus and echo placed in parallel. Johnny Marr found them in the pernicious hum of his guitar after he walked away from it. Thurston Moore found them in the eccentricities and electrical failures of pawn shop guitars. Kevin Shields found them in the overdriving of analog and digital effects. Music has not been limited to the perfection of notes and the perfect reproduction of sound. Indeed, engineers who worked on amplification were horrified that musicians would choose raspy and distorted sounds over the clarity and purity of the instrument. There is a sense of discovery in both using instruments and devices in unconventional ways as well as responding to the random noises that instruments and devices can produce. Certainly, the noise did not have to end because the playing stopped. (J. Spaceman figured that out, but I am sure that others before him did as well).
There have been other machines that have been introduced that promised to attain purity of organic sound: synthesizers, digital recording, compact discs, and synthesizer guitars. Each of these has either been used in discreet ways or else have been subjected to radical interpretations. Synths started as noise generators, not reproducers. Digital recording was scaled back, and analog microphones dominate recording. Compact discs allowed for an expanded tonal pallet: first, people discovered new things, mostly accidents, in old recordings; second, more sound has been placed into contemporary recordings, allowing for complex mixes and unusual noises that would have sounded muddled in the sixties and seventies. And despite making Steve Stevens look cool, the synth guitar never did much. (Robert Fripp notes that the engineers at Roland in Japan were shocked at how he used a synth guitar. They wanted young boys to strum on their front porches and hear trumpets. What he did was play neither like a guitar, nor a synth, nor sound like a trumpet).
How will the digital guitar figure into modern music? Gibson claims that ‘the digital guitar uses computer chips to clean up the signal -- Juszkiewicz describes the new sound as traditional but "on steroids."' Gibson also claims that the new guitar will allow guitarists to create new sounds and textures, but so far they are defined in terms of traditional tonal qualities: "It also allows the player to control the sound of each string. For example, the guitarist can have a heavy metal crunch on the low strings, medium distortion on the middle strings and a clean sound on the high strings." If I remember correctly, AC/DC discovered in the seventies that thick sounds can be made by focusing on separate strings. Furthermore, the hex pickup has existed for some time.
I am skeptical. The promise to "clean up the signal" already limits how sounds can be discover-- at random, by the interaction of instrument, musician, and space (and yes, things like the lighting). But perhaps my biggest concern is how they approached the pickup itself--as it ought to be invisible, as if it and the sounds that it captures are not part of the instrument itself.
Should there be a revolt against this technology? Yes. There is beauty to be found in the failure of the electric guitar. It is not just the string, the wood, and the hands that play it. Over decades the electric guitar distinguished itself from the classical and acoustic guitars, largely on the basis of its nastiness and rawness.
But to revolt against the technology need no be to say no to it. Of course, at its price, the digital guitar will say no to me for years. But it will be necessary to ask "so what? so it's a guitar that sounds like a guitar? what else can it do?" It must be more that an extension of what has come before, like Dr. Farnsworth's finglonger. Gibson's guitars need to do more. They need to put it into the hands up people who can rip it apart.
Johno asked if I would object to the synthesizer. When I discovered music, synths were big. They were about unusual noises and manipulating texture. People complained that they usurped the role of the musician in playing music. That was not the case. Certainly, amateur musicians could sound more polished. Why did they object in the 1980s? Synths had already been around for a while, keyboardists like Rick Wakeman were desperate to use them to simulate symphonies. Synths became more advanced, more able to emulate natural sounds. I objected to that process. A synth was not a grand paino and a string section in a box. It was another tool to discover sound. The synth band did not lead to the demise of the guitar. However, the industrial musicians who took over New Wave's bleeps and bloops influenced heavy metal in the late 1990s. Synths did not take over the string section: it was just as easy for a band to play to tapes as it was to push the button on a sequencer, and only cheesy bands did that.
In my personal musical journey, I wanted to play synthesizers. I loved the idea of manipulating sound, of creating noise. I love the traditional image of Eno who sat before his consul and turned knobs every once in a while. My dad wanted me to play the guitar, and given that he had the money, I played guitar. But I discovered other ways of making noise.
(Perhaps Gibson should have included a digital clock. That would be useful. Would not have to ask the engineer, "how much time is left?")
