PREPARED GUITAR: Emidio Buchinho 13 Questions

Intermedia concert with ZNGR ELECTROACOUSTIC ENSEMBLE + ZOIDFACTORY at Metasonic Opensound 2012, Cultugest, Lisbon, 22/6/2012.

Emidio Buchinho, born in 1963, in Luanda, Angola. At age 15 he commenced as a self-taught guitarist. In 1982 he formed an experimental music project with Vitor Joaquim. He attended Classical Guitar and Music courses in the Luísa Todi Music and Fine Arts Academy (Setúbal, Portugal) and studied in the Château-Thierry Municipal Conservatory (France). Member of the choirs of both cities. He completed a Film and Sound Engineering degree in the ESTC - Escola Superior de Teatro e Cinema.

Concert and performance sound installation of WOW, with Ricardo Guerreiro, at Oficinas do Convento, Montemor-o-Novo, 4/6/2011.

Emidio took part in various workshops on Structures, Forms and New Technologies in Improvised Music, supervised by Carlos “Zíngaro”, Peter Kowald and Richard Teitelbaum; Music and Sound Design for Film, Video and Games supervised by Bruce Pennycook.

Concert with RANDOM GUITAR TRIO (Pedro Alçada, Emidio Buchinho, Antonio Chaparreiro) at Inestética, Vila Franca de Xira, 30/0/2012.

He has been the assistant to the composer and musician Carlos “Zíngaro” between 1997 and 2000.
He has participated in concerts and intermedia performances with these several individuals as Vitor Joaquim, Carlos "Zíngaro", Günter Müller, Carlos Santos, Otomo Yoshihide, Rudiger Carl, Ulrich Mitzlaff, Matt Wand, Nuno Rebelo, Mike Beck, Miguel Cabral, Erik M, António Chaparreiro, Phill Niblock, João Silva, Ricardo Guerreiro, Pedro Lopes, José Oliveira, Adriana Sá, Ben Rubin, Ludger Lamers, Isabelle Schad, Olga Roriz, Margarida Bettencourt and João Natividade, among others.

Concert with Carlos Santos and Pedro Leal at EME #01, INATEL, Setúbal, 5/10/2000.

Since 1990, he works on a regular basis in the areas of musical composition, performance and production, sound engineering, editing and design for films, documentaries, art installations, stage plays, dance, performance art, intermedia and television advertising.

As Sound Specialist for Audiovisuals and Multimedia he teaches at schools such as ESTC-IPL, ESCS-IPL, ESTA-IPT, IPA, ESAD-IPL, ETIC and Restart.
He was the Sound and Music Department Head at ETIC - Escola de Tecnologias, Inovação e Criação, between 2006 and 2010.

Intermedia concert with ZNGR ELECTROACOUSTIC ENSEMBLE + ZOIDFACTORY at Metasonic Opensound 2012, Cultugest, Lisbon, 22/6/2012.

He is codirector and cofounding member of the GRANULAR Association.
He is a PhD Student in Science and Art Technology - Computer Music, in the UCP - Universidade Católica do Porto, with the advising of the composer Dr. António de Sousa Dias.

What do you remember about your first approach to sound?

As a young boy, I was aware of sound, listening to rock and ethnic music at the radio; playing radio frequency spectra at my father’s’ ham radio station; constructing traditional instruments with garbage, in Angola.

EMÍDIO BUCHINHO, ABDUL MOIMÊME, GONÇALO FALCÃO, RICARDO FREITAS Guitars+ PEDRO LOPES turntable + self-cut vinyl + metals

Can you describe a sound experience that you believe contributed to your becoming a musician?

As I was 15 years old I heard a friend of mine playing the acoustic guitar and felt the wide possibilities of such an object (with six strings) in producing sound with meaning and emotion, conducing myself in the perception of the invisible, the metaphysical, the untouched and the unsaid.

By the 80’s and 90’s, I went to a Carlos “Zíngaro” solo concert at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation; to a Carlos Paredes solo concert at the Jesus Convent in Setúbal; to a Telectu concert in Setúbal; to a Michael Brook concert at the Forum Picoas in Lisbon; to Steve Reich and Luciano Berio and Karlheinz Stockhausen concerts at the Encontros Gulbenkian de Música Contemporânea. Then and there, I was spaced out and heard the voice of God(s).

Where are your roots? What are your secret influences?

My musical roots are in the blues, in the rock, in the musique concrète, in the early electronic and experimental music. However, my secret influences are radio waves, omniconscious hearing, walking and talking around, gardening, looking the sky at night and the sea almost every day.

Concert and performance sound installation of WOW, with Ricardo Guerreiro, at Oficinas do Convento, Montemor-o-Novo, 4/6/2011.

How's your musical routine practice?

Cleaning and tuning the guitar; training hands dexterity; exercise extended techniques; test the audio signal chain and the guitar setup. Most of time I practice the guitar without powering it. However, I don’t play as regularly as I wished.

PARASITA ACUMULADOR #4, CARLOS “ZÍNGARO”, LUDGER LAMERS, EMIDIO BUCHINHO, CARLOS SANTOS, JOÃO SILVA, CARLOS GOMES, CLEMENTE CUBA AND MARIA BELO DA COSTA, dance performance with live video and music

Imagens Projectadas - Granular | Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian | CAM - Sala Polivalente |

What's the relevance of technique in music, in your opinion?

Technique is a set of procedures that aim to achieve a particular result. Those procedures do not exclude creativity or expertise or improvisational skills as factors of great relevance to the end result.
In my opinion, throughout history, technique was always more important than technology. The technique responds to a need for survival. The human emerges from its relationship with the environment and is characterized by being conscious, reflective, inventive and individual. So, I think technique and technology are relevant to respond to our interest and will, in the search for new and better ways, to meet our needs, desires and visions.

Which is the main pleasure of the strings? What is their main limitation?

The very nature of pleasure opposes suffering. Playing the guitar excites me, as walking on high-suspended strings, experiencing the space around and the void, expecting an endless free-falling. Meanwhile, I think about the phenomenon: physics and mechanics aspects, vibration and tension, hand force and ability, oxidation and breaking… and enjoy the moment with passion and gratitude (and frustration, sometimes). The sky’s the limit.

What do you recall about your playing learning process?

1: synchronization of the left hand and the right hand;
2: finger picking articulation;
3: understanding music graphical representation idioms;
4: playing while reading;
5: feeling and maintaining time, beat, pulsation;
6: understanding and working dynamics;
7: hearing and interacting with the music and the musicians;
8: remembering silence;
9: reflecting the experience;
10: forgetting the rules.

Tell me one musical work which has provoked a change in your music.

Pink Floyd “A Saucerful of Secrets”; Robert Fripp & Brian Eno “No Pussyfooting”; Pierre Schaeffer “Étude aux Chemins de Fer”; John Cage “Water Walk”; Steve Reich “Electric Counterpoint”; Michael Brook “Live at the Aquarium”; David Torn “Tonal Textures”; Pat Metheny “Zero Tolerance for Silence”; Fred Frith “Guitar Solos”; Derek Bailey “Domestic & Public Pieces (1975-77)”; Keith Rowe “A Dimension of Perfectly Ordinary Reality”; John Bischoff “Decay Trace”.

What is your relationship with other art disciplines?

The different relations between diverse media, forms and structures in space and time, triggers the emotion, the imagination and the conscience on me, in different ways and directions. Specially literature, cinema, painting, dance and performance.

Which living or dead artist would you like to collaborate with?

For years I've been playing with musicians and friends such as Carlos “Zíngaro” and Carlos Santos, which has been a pleasure and an honor for me. Then, it would be nice to work or have worked with Helmut Lachenmann, Karlheinz Essl, António de Sousa Dias, Nicolas Collins, Holger Czukay, Brian Eno, David Sylvian, Bill Frisell, Fred Frith, Keith Rowe, Hans Tammen…

Shot by mário silva, david pereira, ricardo leandro and antónio aleixo | edited by antónio aleixo | voice over written by antónio aleixo

music by mogwai and emidio buchinho

What instruments and tools do you use?

- A 1984 YAMAHA SG400, 6-string electric guitar, expanded with: Seymour Duncan electromagnetic pickups; Graphtech ResoMax NV Bridge Ghost, hexaphonic piezo pickup; Claim Blend Sound CBM-1, passive preamp; auxiliary mic/line input circuit; high-pass filter switch; phase inverter pickup switch; Sanwa Button OBSF-24-R, mono out kill button; Duesenberg Les Trem II, tremolo; unfixed nuts and bridges;
- E-BOW, hand-held electronic bow for guitar (x3);
- SHURE SM99, supercardioid electret mic;
- SHURE 710A, semi-directional crystal mic (x2);

- PANASONIC RF-B11, 12-band AM/FM radio receiver;
- SANYO RP-5070, AM/FM radio receiver;
- SANYO TCR 560M, micro-cassette recorder;
- Remote control pocket tone dialer (x2);
- YAMAHA QY22, portable music workstation;
- Found objects;
- DUNLOP DVP1, guitar volume pedal;

- BOSS FV-200, keyboard volume pedal;
- APPLE MACBOOK PRO 13” / 2.4GHz / 4Gb Ram / 250Gb HD / SuperDrive / Mac OS 10.6.8;
- MOTU ULTRALITE MK3, hybrid FW / USB audio interface with on-board effects and mixing;
- IK MULTIMEDIA STEALTH PEDAL, USB audio interface;
- AVID PRO TOOLS LE 10.0.3, digital multitrack audio workstation;
- ABLETON LIVE 8.4.1, real-time music production;

- MAX 5.1.9 for LIVE 8.4, graphical audio/visual programing environment;
- KORG NANO-KONTROL 2, USB controller;
- KORG NANO-KEY 2, USB controller;
- SONY MDR-7506, headphones;
- SHURE E5, sound isolating earphones;
- GENELEC 6010A or 6020A, active speaker systems.

What are the challenges and benefits of today's digital music scene?

With the proliferation of the electronics in the 80’s and the Digital Revolution in the 90’s, the excessive democratization of technologies produced a massive quantity of digital artists, that brought new ideas and new visions to music. The fast accessibility to information and knowledge; the non-linear and randomized systems and processes; the infinite possibilities of fragmentation and reconfiguration of the media; the micro-processing and micro-composition procedures; everything is changing (fast) in our lives. Telepathy and Babel are closer.

Why do you need music? Can we live without music?

I think that music is my religion. Through it I’ve been learning how to be in life, how to be me, how things work. It’s a kind of therapy, an alchemic process. “Without music, life would be a mistake”, Nietzsche said. And Plato: “Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything.” Music is the poetry of science.

SELECTED DISCOGRAPHY

EMIDIO BUCHINHO & RICARDO GUERREIRO
W.O.W. - WAND OF WATT
Crónica Electrónica [ Crónica 090~2014 ] - 2014
concept and composition, electric guitar, devices, microphones, speakers and electronics;
production, sound recording and mastering; photography

VARIOUS ARTISTS: OPENSOUND
Fibrr Records [ CD ] - 2013
Compilation of live performance recordings and audio-montages stemming from two years of exchanges of Opensound. This CD release was made possible by the generous support of the Grundtvig Lifelong Learning Program and by contributions from Fibrr Records and the following Opensound partners: APO33, AUDIO-LAB, N.K., PIKSEL, GRANULAR and MODUS-ARTS.
electric guitar and electronics within “ZNGR Electroacoustic Ensemble”

BERNARDO DEVLIN
SALA DO RISCO 01/10/1997 LIVE
Author [ CD ] - 2011
sound recording

ULRICH MITZLAFF | MIGUEL MIRA
CELLOS
Creative Sources [CD] - 2010
mixing and mastering

FALLING DUSK
VITTA
Falling Dusk [ CD ] - 2008
acoustic guitar on theme 2

VITOR JOAQUIM
FLOW 
Crónica Electrónica [ Crónica025~ CD ] - 2006 
acoustic guitar

CALENDA
Rudimentol Records [ CD ] - 2006
electric guitar and electronics, field recordings,
production and sound engineering

ANTÓNIO CHAPARREIRO | EMIDIO BUCHINHO | FILIPE BONITO
A ORDEM DOS CONTRÁRIOS
Author [ CD-R ] - 2004
electric guitar and electronics, sound mixing and mastering

CURRENT NINETY THREE
Live at the Teatro Ibérico, Lisbon, Portugal, on Saturday 8 February, 2003
Author [ CD ] - 2003
sound engineering

EMIDIO BUCHINHO
TRANSDUCER (Music For Films and Installations)
BE Rec.s [ BE 02|1CD ] - 2002
electric guitar and electronics, computer, production and sound engineering

MICHAEL GIRA
LIVING '02
Live at the Casa do Artista,
Lisbon, Portugal, on Saturday 8 February, 2002
Author [ CD ] - 2002

WAY OUT - New Music From Portugal Vol.2
Ananana [ MMM 001 | CD ] - 1999
electric guitar and electronics, mastering

VARIOUS AUTHORS: MANUAL DE TEATRO
Planeta [ PRINTED BOOK ] - 2014
sound chapter writing

EMIDIO BUCHINHO
TOLTECH
Ananana [ RRR001 | CD ] - 1999 | Reviews: Vital Weekly
electric guitar and electronics, production and sound engineering