Just Intonation

Last night I went to see a performance of just intonation guitars at the Stone here in New York. You don't need to know the theory to appreciate the music, but for the record, it goes like this: most instruments are tuned in temperament, which means that it's actually ever-so-slightly out of tune with itself, but when you play two different notes together (two keys on the piano, two fretted notes on the guitar) they sound a lot better, because the only natural intervals are the fourth, fifth, and octave, so if you play, say, an E with a D, it will sound less jarring in even temperament than in just intonation because they've both been wiggled enough to work with each other even though they're playing an interval that can't naturally occur on the same physical object. This is why there are piano tuners, and why some electronic guitar tuners are better than others. (I am partially making this up, by the way, so apologies for what I've gotten wrong.) In practice, it meant that each guitar was hooked up to two different amps, and each guitar appeared to be fretless, so that the notes from one guitar could resonate the strings of the other guitar and obviate the need for strumming, while the fingers could then be slid along the neck to produce precise ("just") tones that would further the reverberation.

The best pieces, by far, were the first and the last, both of which built up slowly from long drones. One guitarist, Brian Chase, would play his guitar with an e-bow, producing a sustained but varying tone that was decidedly electronic in nature. This would then set off the other guitar, played by Jon Catler, who would at first manipulate the volume knob to change how much reverberation from his guitar came through the camp, then fret notes, but without moving around too much. And because this was all in just intonation on fretless guitars, the notes could "beat" against each other as their sound waves collided, setting off more overtones that would cause further reverberations. The effect was something like listening in slow-motion to 100 mice playing tiny pump organs. Sound raced around the room and chords changed slowly but decisively, and you were able to pick out your own tonal focus from within the cloud.

For the first piece (I didn't catch titles), Chase started with a single note that went on uninterrupted, then stored it as a loop and began to add other tones over this that he also stored as loops, eventually building up one massive sound that collided with Catler's guitar and set his strings ringing. The pedal point came when, after a long time in the mid-range, Chase turned on a pitch shifter and sent the whole sound up an octave just as Catler sent his lowest string ringing in an unmistakable tonic. (As someone who enjoys making similar but less compelling noises when no one is around, it was particularly impressive how they managed to stay away from definite tones--the natural instinct is to go to the root.) For the last piece, the turning point came again as a change in tone, but a different one. By this point we had discovered that Catler's other amp was able to somehow produce a mist of overdriven but quiet sound even as he was playing clear, clean single notes through the main amp. The piece started more slowly and built more gradually than the first piece, with a few definitive tone changes as the base grew, but it stayed very much in the low register, a sinister but soothing growl. Just when this began to get tiresome, a familiar sound, the high-pitched sound of feedback--feedback being a form of resonance, after all--broke through, and seriously, it was like the light of god and the host of angels suddenly appearing out of the dark. This, in a way, was the noise we'd been waiting to hear all night, and while too much of it would've been grating, the minute or two we got once this broke through was deeply satisfying.

The Stone is having "guitar week" for the next week--well, 6 days I guess--so check it out if you get a chance.

Labels: experimental, guitar, live, new york, noise, yeah yeah yeahs

posted by Mike B. @ 12:43 AM 1 Comments