Large Resonating Structures Played on Electric Guitar
by Kent Macpherson.
First presented at New Zealand Fringe, Wellington, February 2015.
Field recordings for live performance at New Zealand Fringe, Wellington, Feb 2015.
Click below to hear collected excerpts of the recordings.
Click below to hear collected excerpts of the recordings.
In my role as a researcher and lecturer in music at the Waikato Institute of Technology, I continue my practice in to the mysterious and fascinating hidden worlds present in phonography.
As part of the 2014 collective exhibition ‘Survey Hamilton’, I was involved in an audio visual installation entitled ‘Confluence’. This work documented the 6 main bridges that cross the Waikato river in the city of Hamilton. Whilst gathering recordings of the wildly varied vibrations and movements emitted by these immense structures, I became interested in methods of capture rather than the structures themselves. Using contact microphones, hydrophones and geophones, I focused my attention on where to place the contact microphones to isolate specific frequencies. I noticed that the further away I placed the microphones from traffic contact points, the more diffuse and unfamiliar the resonances appeared.
My research capturing the hidden resonances of bridges expanded to other large structures. On a visit to my fathers kiwifruit orchard, I attached my contact microphones to the wire frames that suspend the vines. The resulting, strangely pitched drones instantly satisfied my curiosity. Becoming more aware of the ‘music’ concealed within these everyday structures led me to the realisation that every structure, both man made and natural, has a symphony to reveal. A symphony with frequencies and rhythms as complex as any work by Stravinsky.
This structural sonic collecting has become my primary recording interest. This practice has taken me to places I would never normally visit. For example, I was fortunate to be allowed access underneath the Avanti velodrome in Cambridge, where New Zealands Olympic cyclists live and breathe their craft. The man made wooden track revealed hypnotic phrases, as the sounds of trainers shouting and the athletes riding was captured echoing through the many kilometres of Siberian pine that make up the track.
As a guitarist, it seemed quite natural to use this familiar instrument as an interface to ‘play’ these recorded fragments in a live performance environment. What you will hear is improvised and no two performances can ever be the same. My sonic palette is divided in to the following nine categories as a sort of ‘musical’ reference point to draw from during performance:
The Midi Guitar software recognises notes or pitches from the electric guitar as note on/note off messages that allow me to trigger specific recordings at my discretion. The acousmatic environment consists of 5 loudspeakers. One subwoofer and 4 satellites. These 4 satellites are each fed a discreet signal from 4 separate outputs of the audio interface.
As part of the 2014 collective exhibition ‘Survey Hamilton’, I was involved in an audio visual installation entitled ‘Confluence’. This work documented the 6 main bridges that cross the Waikato river in the city of Hamilton. Whilst gathering recordings of the wildly varied vibrations and movements emitted by these immense structures, I became interested in methods of capture rather than the structures themselves. Using contact microphones, hydrophones and geophones, I focused my attention on where to place the contact microphones to isolate specific frequencies. I noticed that the further away I placed the microphones from traffic contact points, the more diffuse and unfamiliar the resonances appeared.
My research capturing the hidden resonances of bridges expanded to other large structures. On a visit to my fathers kiwifruit orchard, I attached my contact microphones to the wire frames that suspend the vines. The resulting, strangely pitched drones instantly satisfied my curiosity. Becoming more aware of the ‘music’ concealed within these everyday structures led me to the realisation that every structure, both man made and natural, has a symphony to reveal. A symphony with frequencies and rhythms as complex as any work by Stravinsky.
This structural sonic collecting has become my primary recording interest. This practice has taken me to places I would never normally visit. For example, I was fortunate to be allowed access underneath the Avanti velodrome in Cambridge, where New Zealands Olympic cyclists live and breathe their craft. The man made wooden track revealed hypnotic phrases, as the sounds of trainers shouting and the athletes riding was captured echoing through the many kilometres of Siberian pine that make up the track.
As a guitarist, it seemed quite natural to use this familiar instrument as an interface to ‘play’ these recorded fragments in a live performance environment. What you will hear is improvised and no two performances can ever be the same. My sonic palette is divided in to the following nine categories as a sort of ‘musical’ reference point to draw from during performance:
- Low frequency (hums/drones/thuds)
- Ambient (physical environment)
- Hydrophones (sub-aquatic)
- Avanti Drome
- Kawhia ocean beach (a large natural structure?)
- Bridges
- Wires & Pylons
- Tanks (varying levels of displacement)
- Noisy, harsh and high frequency
The Midi Guitar software recognises notes or pitches from the electric guitar as note on/note off messages that allow me to trigger specific recordings at my discretion. The acousmatic environment consists of 5 loudspeakers. One subwoofer and 4 satellites. These 4 satellites are each fed a discreet signal from 4 separate outputs of the audio interface.
