I Wish You Could See That

Acoustic guitar (microphone and piezo), re-amped piano, field recordings, granular synthesis
Vocal performance by Richard English

In this piece, the acoustic guitar functions as the primary resonant system. It is captured simultaneously via microphone and piezo pickup to access both air-mediated and structural vibration.

All sounds are performed into or re-amped through the guitar body, allowing its harmonic profile to shape the entire signal chain.

A pre-recorded piano signal is reintroduced into the guitar. Amplitude peaks extracted from field recordings modulate the dry/wet balance between the piano signal recorded through the guitar and the direct re-amped signal. This creates a continuously shifting relationship between mediated and re-mediated sound.

String distortion saturation is controlled by real-time harmonic analysis of the guitar. Granular drum material is indexed by filtered white noise, introducing stochastic variation into rhythmic articulation.

The system explores cross-instrument resonance and the use of environmental data as a control layer within a tightly coupled acoustic framework.