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

Q: I'd love to hear about the gear, techniques, processing, etc. that Chris uses on Duende (and other ma ja le related material for that matter). As a guitarist, Chris' approach has been something of a textbook for me in terms of achieving certain sounds with this instrument. I'd like to hear as much detail as Chris cares to describe on how certain sounds were arrived at, thought processes/approach for composition, etc.

My basic guitar rig is as follows:

Keyboards:
Currently none used.(Yamaha CS40-M on "Dreams")
Guitars:
Ibanez Custom S-series
Dean Cadillac Select (artist prototype)
Amps:
Hughes & Kettner tour reverb 100
Mixer:
Mackie 1604 VLZ
Outboard Equipment:
2 Alesis Wedges
Digitech 2101 Artist series
Digitech IPS-33B
TC Electronics G-force
Lexicon Vortex
Loopers:
Lexicon Jamman
Line Six Delay Modeler
Akai Headrush
Digitech Timemachine
Electrix Repeater
Stomp Boxes:
Z-Vex Fuzz factory
Z-Vex Ooh Wah
Z-Vex Super Hard On
Fuzz 2000
Danelectro French Toast (octave-fuzz)
Boss Phaser
Crybaby 535Q Wah-wah
Volume pedal

The signal flow goes something like this, guitar into stomp boxes, into amp, and into mixer. All outboard processors and loopers into mixer. The Mackie has six sends and two sub mixes, for the most part everything runs in parallel. Allowing me to be very flexible in terms of routing FX sends into each other. This I do live in real time to achieve various levels of sound. I typically dedicate one of the wedges to looping and the other to real time guitar stuff. As I go along I allow a push pull thing to happen with my loops; filling them up then cutting off the send and playing along with them or develop a new loop in the background while allowing the loop to play and fade away. Kind of like riding waves of sound. Intermittently I will add elements over the top. The 2101 allows me to access and change 16 different parameters between two expression pedals, which I have a lot of fun with.

A basic process is a two step one. The first step is sound development - program writing with the various outboard gear, often while developing a sound/FX patch I will come up with motifs appropriate for that particular sound. Next would be development of those motifs either in an improvised setting or in a compositional one. There are other times where I just enjoy playing my classical guitar and letting the ideas flow from that.

Q: What are the differences between stepping out as a solo artist and being part of a group, in this case
Ma Ja Le.

Ma Ja Le for me has always meant collaboration, a group expression. Each individual brings their voice to the sound. It has been my experience when working with others that a democratic partnership occurs. Especially when no one is getting paid upfront to play what you tell them. This is certainly true in Ma Ja Le. This is a situation where all contributing members have say in the final outcome. In solo excursions the director role is clearly defined and even if inclusion of other musical talents is involved the director has the final say. In this way Paul and I are able to fully develop any hair brained idea that may occur to us. We also have come to a point where we freely contribute to one another's recordings while allowing the other to guide or direct the finished work.

Q: It seems most Ma Ja Le CDs and your excursions outside of Ma Ja Le are collaborations. What and why is the special appeal of collaborating with different artists? How do you define and adapt your own voice and identity in collaborative group of people who may or may not have different goals and agendas?

Working with a group of writers invariably leads to potentially interesting and different resolves than a single person/writer would normally come up with. There are times when it is necessary to go alone and develop by yourself. Equally there is a time when you develop with others. One only has to look at the film industry to get the full scope of how several combined talents make for a powerful creative work.

Also as a composer you may have an idea but not the ability to play the instrument or produce a section in the way you would like. In this scenario the inclusion of another talent/team member that fits the bill. Or playing with another musician may bring music you normally wouldn't play out of you, simply by playing together. I personally have always viewed Ma Ja Le as an artists collective, so different personnel just bring their personalities and visions to that collective.

Q: On past Ma Ja Le albums and even on "Duende" the music has a more "composed" song-structured feel as opposed to the more minimal, almost improvised nature of ambient music. How does one "write" ambient music? Does Ma Ja Le have a standard writing or working method?

I consider Ambient music to have a closer affinity to painting than to music. As such it becomes a matter of visual idealisms and formalities. Such as considering the sonic "palette", texture, movement, space, foreground, middle ground, background, gesture (to use an R. Murray Schaffer term) and so on. It's interesting to note that the Surrealists did not include music in their manifesto, stating that music could not be Surreal. I beg to differ. However I am also aware that because it is organized sound (however loosely) and regardless of how I personally conceptualize my ideas, an audience will consider this as music in the traditional sense and as such will bring notions and expectations to their listening experience. One of the issues In Duende I grappled with was to bridge that understanding by including melody to assist in defining the underlying movements already presents. Hopefully to gain a broader appreciation of this wonderful art form.

Q: Is Ma Ja Le very comfortable in a live setting? How many ambient groups play live? How do you prepare for a live show? How do you go about "recreating" songs from past albums? How much of a typical Ma Ja Le performance is improvised? How have your live performances "evolved" since starting in 1994?

Paul and I are no strangers to playing live Ambient and other forms of music in front of an audience. That being said there is usually no steadfast rules about how we proceed with a live performance.

For our last live performance at the Space for Music Festival, which was held in Nashville this year. We blind improvised together two or three times and started to flesh out motifs to use in performance. Once we established the motifs each of us individually came up with further sounds and ideas for the performance, this further stuff, kind of amounts to how am I going to surprise the other guy with this or that nifty sound. What we ended up with was basically brand new material. So for the Space for Music Festival we didn't play any pieces from our back catalogue. Although we have done that on occasion as well. The Harvest Moon concert/CD actually presented a couple of pieces in early forms later to be fully developed on the James Johnson - Ma Ja Le album "Seed". Some may be interested in A/B ing the two albums to see what kind of growth our motifs go through.

Personally I never really know what I'm going to play; it changes moment to moment. I like to respond to what is going on around me at the time. Generally we have set the order of when the motifs will occur but not how long they can or will be played. So we know the general feel in a particular section but that's it. Then again you never know what someone is going to do. For instance during the Aquaculture performance I did with Vir Unis and James Johnson there was a point where Vir Unis broke into this fantastic chordal progression. Either James or I expected it and just went with it, consequently when I listen back to the performance it was one of the special magic points of the evening. It had that certain something.

As far as re-creating past material live. For me it's just about re-learning what motifs I played there, going for it and hoping for the best.

Q: Ma Ja Le has a loop library for Sonic Foundry. What are the similarities between creating an album and creating a loop library or sound design project?

For me the similarities are exploration of sound in a particular area, and the development of that area to it's fullest. A fun thing about a loop library is we didn't exclusively focus on already covered territory. Instead we developed in new areas, which consequently will be utilized in future Ma Ja Le releases.

Q: What is coming up next for Ma Ja Le ? What projects are in the works and what can we expect.

I don't want to give away too much, other than to say a lot is cookin' on them burners.

However this year on the Cosmicdreamscapes.com website I posted a prospectus for the year and will continue to do so in the future. It gives my personal view for the present and during the creative process and may change and grow with a life of it's own. Which I find typically happens during the creative process. For instance most of the projects I sighted have been completed. A couple for various reasons is going to roll over into next year. One in particular is a long form piece set originally for release this spring, in listening to an early final mix I decided to consider it awhile before calling it finished. It goes along with the time ideology set in Duende. One of the important things for me is it be a spring release.
I look at Cosmicdreamscapes.com as a personal online journal full of drawings and ideas. Anyone who is interested in my internal thinking is welcome to check out the site and look through its pages. Additionally Cosmicdreamscapes will be expanding its visual galleries to include online exhibits of other Artists work. Coming soon an exhibition of Paul Vnuk's Digital Photography, some new pictorial work of mine and some fantastic work by a couple of other special artists we will be announcing in the future.

Thanks for the wonderful questions,

Christopher

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