An Approach to Instrument Augmentation: the Electric Guitar

In this paper we describe an ongoing research on augmented instruments, based on the specific case study of the electric guitar. The key question of the relationship between gesture, instrument and sound is approached via an analysis of the electric guitar’s design, playing technique and interface characteristics. The study points out some inherent defaults in the guitar’s current forms of acoustic-electric hybridation, as well as new perspectives for a better integration of the relationship between instrumental gesture and signal processing. These considerations motivate an augmented guitar project at the CICM, in which a gestural approach to augmentation is developed, emphasising the role of the instrumentist’s repertoire of body movements as a source for new gesture-sound « contact points » in the guitar playing technique.