Lois V Vierk

for five electric guitars

ca. 12'54"

This piece is for 5 electric guitars. The symbol on the title page means "five" and is pronounced "go" in Japanese. Guitars strings are all tuned to E and microtonal variants of E. I think of the 5 guitars as acting together to form one massive instrument.

Go Guitars is concerned with sound, with expression, and with musical structure. It begins with relatively simple musical materials – strums, repeated pitches, and pulled string glissandi. These sounds are continuously developed in slow unfolding patterns. The sounds and phrases become more complex, finally developing into dynamic slide glissandi on all 6 strings, covering the entire range of the instrument.

This work utilizes principles of what I call “exponential structure”, in which time and rates of change of musical materials are governed by application of exponential factors. The piece builds in intensity, moving from a high volume opening to a frenzied finale.

I composed Go Guitars in Los Angeles in 1981 for John Scnheider. A CD of this piece performed by David Seidel is available on XI Records.

The composer has approved this work for performance by a soloist with a recorded track for the other parts. Click here to download materials needed for that version.

Click here to view the CD on XI Records.

Click here to view the score and listen to the recording.