Welcome to part one of Ma Ja Le.Com's exclusive interview with ambient guitarist Christopher Short.

Q: As a guitar aficionado, please mention the following guitarists in terms of influence, and/or name two others who I have missed and who mean a lot to you:

Jimi Hendrix-Robert Fripp-Pat Martino-WilliamAckerman-Alex DeGrassi-Michael Hedges (Windham Hill)-John McLaughlin-Steve Tibbetts

Jimi Hendrix is my reason for playing guitar.
I was very sheltered as a kid and wasn't very aware of rock as a phenomenon. I was 13 or 14 the first time I heard Hendrix, a friend and I were walking down an old country dirt road and this car came roaring by with Purple Haze blasting out of its windows. The car was kicking up this huge cloud of dust that floated in the air behind the car and seemed to bear the music along with it as the car came towards us. I was blown away! I wanted to know what kind of instrument made that sound and who made it. My friend knew and told me but panned him as a has been or that ole stuff. The name stuck, but it wasn't until a year or so later that I got my first Hendrix album "Are You Experienced". Once I heard all the different sounds and music he was able to get out of a guitar, I was intrigued. So much so I wanted to figure out how play guitar myself and explore more fully the areas he seemed to touch on but in his unfortunately short career never fully realized.

Robert Fripp
I really didn't start listening actively to music until I was 14 or 15 years old and then it was like the floodgates opened. At that time a teacher of mine who was very hippyish turned me on to Hendrix, Zeppelin, Talking Heads and Fripp and Eno. I loved Fripp and Eno's - Evening Star which I got from a local library and No Pussyfooting and would listen to those recordings over and over. But trying to find more recordings like those in 1980-81 were difficult for me.

I finally discovered Eno's Ambient series when I was 19-20. My first Eno purchase was Music for Airports, I fell instantly in love with it, and again found it difficult to find the other titles in the series.

It's funny but a couple of times I have actually been compared to Fripp while in early rock bands of mine. But I would never site him as a direct influence even though recordings he has been involved in are some of my most favorite.

I guess this is because he is a very technical player and I don't consider myself as such. When I first heard King Crimson's - Beat I had only been playing for or year or two and there was no way I was going to cop those riffs! And as far as his work with Eno I had no idea at the time of how he was doing that. Besides I really don't consider myself a musician in the typical sense, especially not a technical one. I think of myself as a painter who uses music as a medium.

I hadn't heard of King Crimson until I was 16 and that was the Beat album which I loved and then bought the Three of a perfect pair album when it came out. The next thing I heard from Crimson was Court of the Crimson King when I was 22 and was blown away!

Also it wasn't until a friend who I used to jam with all the time helped me out, that the Fripp ideas made sense to me. He introduced me to a looping device and an e-bow and suddenly the light went on and the pieces fell into place. It's a funny story actually. I was getting ready to move in a week and then he shows me this thing, (actually had to insist/force me to play with it). I started to come up with all this great stuff on the spot and I had to ask (beg) if I could borrow it for a couple of days so I could do some recordings. He reluctantly (understandably) agreed and I spent the next three days recording three, ninety minute tapes filled back to back with all these loop based ideas.

I was in heaven, many ideas which I had struggled to realize suddenly became realities. Harmonies, noisescapes and layers of sound which were fairly unobtainable for me suddenly became obtainable and possible by playing in real time.

Out of those tapes I gleaned a solid 90 minutes which I called Psilosonic Gardenia, a project I'm currently working on re-mastering. It was through this collection that I introduced what I was doing to Paul Vnuk.

The other big influences include, Tony Iomi, Jimmy Page, and Eddie VanHalen and David Torn.

Q: HOW ABOUT THREE NON-GUITARISTS- Ravi Shankar, Miles Davis, and Brian Eno

Yes, Yes and Yes. And don't forget Coltrane , Coleman and Monk.
The other significant influence was classical composers like Bach, Beethoven, Mozart and others who's names I have forgotten, but was introduced to by a piano student that had stayed with my family. He actually took me to my first concert when I was ten which was a piano concerto and quartet music.

Q: Name the one goofiest records (lamest, most musically worthless dreck) that you ever bought on vinyl, repurchased on CD....and why?

Off the top of my head I can't say I have.
I'm the kind of listener that is either grabbed by something right away or not at all. Most of the time if something had to grow on me, it didn't stay in my collection.

One that Paul always finds weird is Jefferson Airplane's - After Bathing at Baxters. Although I don't consider it a musically worthless dreck (personally I find it to be a masterpiece) I know a lot of folks that just don't get it and look at me real fuuuunnnny when I play it and rave away. I had gotten it originally at some garage sale in NJ on vinyl and have since bought the CD of it twice.

Q: Who are your greatest influences what do they play and how does that translate into your music?

My greatest influences right now are Ravi Shankar and Raga in general, which I feel has the potential for a strong connection with Ambient music. Both through hypnotic drones, celestial content and possibilities of melody and improvisation occurring within a frame work.

Many of these elements occur while looping. Like having a harmonic background which to base melody on and around. On a personal level I feel this makes a connection to the spiritual/religious aspects of my music.

Traditional Jazz as well, especially for it's improvisation, and idea of a head arrangement which the players use as stepping off points for musical possibilities. Many of Ma Ja Le's pieces are done this way, indicating a specific texture or musical direction/feel at a certain point in a performance.

Another one would be Krysztof Penderecki with his visceral orchestral washes and in general the orchestral palette of many composers intrigues me and becomes part of the thinking during my compositional process. This translates into many layers of sound, both through use of multiple loops that already in themselves have several layers and then by combining these and lastly by orchestrating melody or gestures around the form.

Lastly I would site Radiohead's recent output, Especially Kid-A.
For their success of pushing digital manipulation and process to a broad audience.

Q: What do you think about when you're recording loops?

That I'm some mad scientist directing a fantastical alien orchestra. :)

My basic process is to open up, let go and start throwing ideas via playing into a loop or loops. These I consider seeds which I will build upon and or combine later.

It's weird, there are times I whiz something off and get a killer loop right away and there are other times when I play with the same basic motif for hours until the loop comes out right. No rhyme or reason just the way it goes.

Usually the ones that get used are the ones that have that "freshness" or spark of immediacy. Of course I don't want to give the impression that my music is completely loop based, all roads lead to Tipperary.

Aside from process, I'm usually trying to connect with the music in my head or an idea imagistic-ally or I may be trying to create a landscape, a story, or some kind of space with elements that sit in a three dimensional reference. A lot of times it's like, flying in the clouds for me.

Q: Who do you think would win in a fight, Superman or Godzilla?

Superman without a doubt, all he has to do is pick Godzilla up, fly to the Sun and throw the beast in. Or at least drop Godzilla from the sky and impale it on Mount Rushmore.

Q: If a train leaves Chicago going 80 mph, and another train leaves Denver going 65mph, how fast is the beat loop in a 12 minute ambient loop phrase?

Uh is this a trick question? Probably a fast as your Repeater will go.

Q: Are there monsters living in YOUR closet?

Yes and they are in maximum security detention until further notice.

Q: When building a deep, layered piece, one of the hardest things I come across is how to keep everything in it's own space and also knowing when is enough really enough or too much. Duende is a very "thick" sounding disc. did you run into this problem?

When I start an idea it usually sounds like a complete jumble to everyone else (or so they tell me), I throw tons of sounds up on the "canvas".
However I usually know what I want to hear (already heard it in my head).
So in a way I work backwards, carving away at dense layers of sound rather than building them up.

I try to be aware of where the various elements sit in the frequency spectrum and will often use EQ to limit or accent the area of where a particular element sits so it won't step on other frequencies that may be happening in a piece.

The biggest challenge I had in Duende was getting a convincing top end.
This was because the guitar and guitartronics were the major sonic components, and getting a real bright sound (beyond 6khz) other than with fuzz or a real jacked wah-sound can be a difficult proposition.

I really wanted to highlight the guitartronics so I didn't use a synthesizer to accomplish the high end sparkle. Instead one of the solutions I discovered was to use digital glitches and overloaded signal processors in a musical way to provide a high sheen for many of the pieces, which you can hear especially on the night disc.

Q: Do You think You will ever be as cool as Me, and if so, how will You accomplish this goal?

Only if I jump into a bathtub full of cold water and ice cubes. And even then probably only can be fractionally so.

Q: How would you describe the perfect woman?

The one I'm currently with. (Good answer in case she reads this - PV)

Q: Do you still dress in women's clothing?

Although I have greatly cut back in this activity I still do occasionally, mostly when she decides to wear the pants. At those times I have to borrow one of her skirts.

Thus ends part one of our in depth interview with Mr Short.

For Part Two Click Here!