Rusty Banks is a composer/guitarist/teacher originally from Jasper, AL, now living in Pennsylvania.
His compositions benefit from themes relating to regions or environments. For example, his composition commissioned by the Alabama Music Teacher Association's 2004 convention featured audio samples from the Cahaba River, Alabama's last free-flowing river. Another work, "Long Pine Creek: New Year's Day," uses sounds from Long Pine Creek in Nebraska. His compositions range from traditional concert music to sonic installations where boom boxes are scattered throughout a room. His music is described as thoroughly modern, yet accessible, a description he shudders at, but reluctantly accepts. His compositions may be heard on Living Artist Recordings, as well as his web site, rustybanks.org.
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Sunday, July 02, 2006
Hydrology
The electric guitar is hardly exotic. So ubiquitous had it become, that acoustic music was a novelty by the 1980’s. Neglected in this pendulous swing between acoustic and electric was the humble gut-stringed beginnings of “The People’s Instrument.”
Berlioz called the guitar “an orchestra in miniature” but perhaps it is better described as an orchestra of nuance. But can we hear nuance these days?
Combining the classical guitar with electronics affords us beauty beyond what either could accomplish alone. Now the guitar can crescendo. It can appear behind the audience. It can change the size and shape of the space it occupies.
Classical guitar may be the “real” guitar, but classical guitar and electronics constitute the “surreal” guitar.
posted by Rusty Banks
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