By: Matt Warnock
Photos courtesy of R. Graham.
We don’t get a lot of electronic music coming our way at Guitar International, and I have to admit that my own lack of experience with the genre left me with stereotypes and misconceptions of a genre that is often labeled on one side of the spectrum as club music, and on the other, academic based composition.
When Ricky Graham’s new album Signals Under Tests came across my desk, I was a bit hesitant at first because of the genre label, but man am I ever glad that I sat down and gave this record a chance. It has turned out to not only be a very enjoyable listening experience, but has also opened my eyes and ears to the electronic genre, especially the guitar’s role in this music.
Having said that, this album is not for every guitar fan, and more traditional listeners may not fully grasp the concepts that Graham is bringing together with this recording. But, don’t let a genre label prevent you from checking out new music.
The album is masterfully composed, expertly arranged and is not only intellectually stimulating, it is just plain fun to listen to. Though there are certain aspects of the instrument that some fans may miss with this modern and personalized approach, Graham also opens up many doors to new sounds and playing techniques that one wouldn’t normally think of when checking out an instrumental record.
Guitar International recently caught up with Ricky Graham to pick his brain about the new record, his compositional approach and get his thoughts on modern, electronic music.
Ricky Graham
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Matt Warnock: When you’re writing a new song where do you start? Do you get a groove and build from there, or are you first inspired by a melodic line, or both?
Ricky Graham: I tend to approach my music from a production point of view. I start with musical resources or cues available to me, which could be pitch, timbre, time, or spatial location of a particular acoustic event, which could be a single note of the guitar or multitude of integrated textures achieved through a synthesis process.
If I’m not working within a wholly instrumental framework, I would then work with a vocal narrative based on what visual cues I associate with the musical structures.
Matt: How much does technology inspire your music? Do you come at a song or album from a musical perspective first then find the technology to realize that vision, or do you find interesting programs and sounds and then adapt the music to those mediums?
Ricky Graham: It tends to vary depending on the project. Improvising with the guitar and computer also plays a huge role in the production of my music. What starts out as an improvisation usually ends up as a piece of music later down the line. You might say the constructed practice presents a form of symbiosis between the computer and electric guitar.
Recently, I’ve based my whole performance approach to guitar music on the exploitation of a polyphonic audio pickup system. The system allows audio for each string, and in the world of computer music, you can create a lot of interesting musical structures with that kind of accessibility in a real-time performance environment.
It changes the way I approach the instrument, specifically in terms of conventional guitar voicings. I’m currently completing a performance system in the object orientated programming environment, Pure Data (http://puredata.org), which I hope will allow me to establish meaningful synthesis processes based on incoming pitch information from the guitar.
Certainly, this technology has very much inspired my compositional and performance approach for the foreseeable future, and in this instance, the potential found within this technology is at the forefront of my musical aesthetic.
Ricky Graham
Matt: You are also a researcher and lecture at a University in Northern Ireland. Is your research directed at electronic and other dance music, and do you feel that the music you make is inspired by your research and vice-versa?
Ricky Graham: My research focuses on the development of a live performance system based on current theoretical research, concerning tonal pitch space and memory, not on a particular genre or style of music. I’m generally not too specific in dealing with a particular style of music writing exclusively.
Most folks tend to label my music is recent years as “experimental,” which seems to be a nice way of saying the music is extremely weird and inaccessible, commercially speaking, which is fine by me.
I tend to incorporate the elements I enjoy from the various styles of guitar music I’ve learned into my performance vocabulary, and assimilate that into a practice which also combines the production and programming skills I’ve acquired over time.
The more research that takes place, the more my music becomes rooted in theoretical research. So, yes, both my research and my music are very much related and again tend to have a somewhat symbiotic relationship.
Matt: Do you think the time is right for electronic music, in the popular sense, to be included in more University music programs?
Ricky Graham: I believe popular electronic music already is a part of many University programs, in terms of music production and other forms of creative technology programs. I think the timing continues to be good for these programs, and for guitar players who are attempting to extend their instrumental vocabulary beyond conventional monaural model, particularly now that the technology is very affordable, if not completely free of cost given the multitude of open source communities online.
Matt: Electronic music is meant to be experienced in a club with a room full of dancing people. Is this where you envision your music when you are writing, or are you picturing your music being heard by individuals on their iPods etc.?
Ricky Graham: I have to say I find the idea of people dancing to my music hilarious. I would imagine my music is not fit for the club scene, with the exception of the occasional remix.
I suppose I can only hope that my music is something to be listened to, but I’m not in control of how one might interact with it, be it dancing or otherwise. People often inform me that my music belongs in a computer game or film.
Matt: Do you have plans to tour with the new album, or was this project intended to only be recorded and released that way?
Ricky Graham: Good question. I’m quite busy writing my doctoral thesis at the moment, but I do hope to perform later in 2011. By such time, I hope to have some new music written and ready to perform. There are a series of potential European dates toward the end of the year.
The CD was really an opportunity to record the first of a series of musical ideas I had been working on with the polyphonic pickup system, and to collaborate with some musician friends. While I’m quite happy with Mecca, it barely scratches the surface of where the music could be, so do keep an ear out for new material in 2011. Expect “heavier” timbres, drones, intertwined with various pitch modalities. At least, that’s the intention, for now.
