‚Spatial Guitar‘ is an immersive concert performance by composer and guitarist Kavall which extends the electric guitar into a spatially playable instrument that surrounds the audience.
The sound of the guitar is separated into its individual strings. Each string is played and processed as its own musical voice and routed to one of six speaker steles that are placed in a hexagon around the audience. This arrangement allows for new forms of compositions. Spatially choreographed tone sequences, circulating patterns and pulsing textures move through space and blend in the room like the individual voices of an orchestra.
The spatial arrangement is inspired by Kavall’s research into the sound of English church bells. The circular tower bells, which are rung by hand in permuting patterns, unfold an immersive, tonal quality which he transfers to the guitar. ‚Spatial Guitar‘ is the first of its kind to reimagine the electric guitar as a spatially playable instrument of independent voices that surround the audience.