Exploring New Dimensions in Sound

The SCOTTISH GUITAR QUARTET embark on a Highland Tour with their new Framework guitars and new music for their Roland VG-88 synthesiser. MALCOLM MacFARLANE tells KENNY MATHIESON how they intend to explore their new technology within an acoustic guitar sound.

THE SCOTTISH GUITAR QUARTET formed in 1999 when Malcolm MacFarlane returned to Scotland after a spell in London. He recruited three leading guitarists to join him in the band, in the shape of Nigel Clark, Kevin MacKenzie and Ged Brockie.

Despite that rather classical sounding name, the SGQ have their roots in jazz, and its members boast a substantial pedigree in that field. Nonetheless, their music seems less defined by any specific genre than by the sound and musical possibilities of the four lightly amplified acoustic guitars which they have used until very recently in this band.

“I think that’s pretty much right,” Malcolm agreed. “It is a tricky one to answer when people ask what kind of music do we play? We all have a jazz background, but none of us are limited to that. There is no one stylistic brief within the band, it’s more a matter of what is possible with the four guitars. Everybody writes, so that means a variation in approach anyway.

“If a piece has a classical influence or a folk influence or a rock influence or Flamenco influence, then that’s fine. We feel that as long as they feel good to play and they work for us, nothing is proscribed. We also make use of the contrasts between highly arranged or highly composed pieces and more improvised passages. Our aim is to keep it as open as possible – there is no area that we are banned from dipping into.”

That eclectic approach was reflected in the band’s two CDs to date, Near The Circle (2001) and the recent Fait Accompli. The quartet have used lightly amplified acoustic guitars up until now, but recently took delivery of a new set of futuristic looking – but conventionally beautiful sounding – guitars from Germany maker Frank Krocker.

“It all started when Kevin was at a festival somewhere and came across the Austrian guitarist Wolfgang Muthspiel playing one. We checked them out on the web first of all, then invited Frank to come over and demonstrate some models to us last October.

“We all liked one in particular, which is called the Modern Classic. It’s basically a classical guitar neck with nylon strings and a frame body, with the tuning pegs at the other end. They are all handmade instruments, and they have the Roland pickup for the VG-88 synthesiser incorporated within them.

“To us the VG-88 with standard acoustic guitars would mean cutting holes in them and so on, but they pickup is already there, so it allowed it to us incorporate the VG-88 without sacrificing the acoustic guitar sound.

“The Framework guitars have a lovely sound, and they are beautifully made, so it was an elegant solution for us. They feel like a really nice acoustic guitar to play, especially for the left (or fretting) hand. Because there is no body, the right hand feels a little different at first, more as if you are playing an electric guitar.

“The one thing I worried about was that because there is no body they might be a bit neck-heavy, but in fact they are incredibly well balanced – it was obviously something he had thought about. He’s a very clever guy. Basically he has taken all the elements of an acoustic and rethought them in a modern way.”

The quartet will play an acoustic set on the new instruments in the first part of their set for the tour. The second will feature new music written for the guitars and the Roland VG-88 synthesiser, including a suite commissioned from Malcolm by the Scottish Arts Council, inspired by the landscape of East Lothian, where he lives. Ged Brockie has also written some new music incorporating the VG-88.

“The VG-88 is the next step on in guitar synthesis, if you like,” Malcolm explained. “People have tried for 20 year or more to find an effective way of getting a guitar to trigger a synthesiser, but there has always been a reluctance among guitarists to go that way. All four of us have dabbled with earlier alternatives — Nigel had one of the early Synthaxe models, and the rest of us have tried earlier Roland models.

“One of the problems was always the delay – the synth had to read several cycles of the note to determine the pitch before it was able to convert it into MIDI information and synth sounds. That meant adjusting technique to compensate, and certain sounds played better than others.

“THE VG-88 HAS gone beyond that technology into what they call sound modelling. You now have an instantaneous response, and instead of triggering synth sounds it actually takes the audio directly from the guitar and remodels it digitally, so that while we are all playing nylon strung guitars, it can emulate the sound of a steel string guitar or a 12-string or an electric, or even non-guitar sounds. It has sitar patches, fretless bass, weird synthy noises, big lush effects and so on.

“It opens up a whole new palette of sounds to us, and also gives us a greater range. We have stayed pretty much with standard guitar tuning, but with the VG-88 we can change the pitch of notes a couple of octaves down or up just at the touch of a button, which opens up the bass end if we want, for example. It lets us broaden the whole depth of the sound right through the range.

“There were a lot of strange noises at the first rehearsal, but what we are trying to do is work in a fairly acoustic fashion with it, not just trying to make as many weird noises as we can. We are exploring all aspects of it, but without going mad with it right off! The temptation is just to run riot with the effects, but we are approaching it more organically than that, maybe using just one ‘foreign’ sound within a piece, and see how that works within an acoustic sound.”

The Scottish Guitar Quartet play at the following venues in September 2003:
Tuesday 9 September 2003 – An Tobar, Tobermory, Isle of Mull
Wednesday 10 September 2003 – Iona Library, Iona
Thursday 11 September 2003 – Birnam Institute, Birnam
Friday 12 September 2003 – An Lanntair, Stornoway, Isle of Lewis
Saturday 13th September 2003 – Workshops, Stornoway, (9:30am -12:30pm)
Friday 19 September 2003 – Glenurquhart Halls, Drumnadrochit
Saturday 20 September 2003 – CCA, Glasgow