Flesh Guitar

FORTY GUITAR SOLOS FOR JENNY SLADE, COMPOSED BY TOM SCORN

(In these compositions it is assumed that the guitarist is right handed and plays a conventionally strung instrument. Left-handers should make the appropriate reversals.)

1) The Lubrication Solo

The player takes a guitar and places it on a stand so that it is upright, leaning backwards at a slight angle. She opens a two-gallon tin of motor oil and pours its contents down the neck of the guitar, varying the rate and quantity of oil so as to vary the sound produced. She continues until the tin is empty.

2) The Spherical Solo

The player arranges a number of different guitars on stage. She then moves to the back of the hall where there is a large pile of balls of various sizes and weights and densities. The player hurls these balls one at a time at the guitars on stage, attempting to hit them cleanly on the strings, but inevitably inaccuracies will occur. Some balls will miss the strings, hit the guitar’s body or machine heads, with rich unpredictable results.

(Possible projectiles include cricket balls, baseballs, cotton-wool balls, footballs, meat balls and, at outdoor winter gigs, snowballs.)

3) The Hot Solo

With her left hand the player begins to play the chord changes of a standard I–IV–V progression (‘Louie Louie’, ‘Wild Thing’, et al). In her other hand she now takes an ignited blow lamp and ‘strums’ the strings with the flame until either the strings melt or the guitar body catches fire. (The noise subsequently created by the use of the fire extinguisher is to be considered part of the solo.)

4) The Fall Solo

The player selects a number of guitars, tunes them to Open E and places them under the spreading branches of a large deciduous tree on a breezy day in mid-autumn. As the leaves fall they land on the strings and play fragile, delicate notes and half chords.

5) The Blackboard Solo

The player holds down a chord of C 7th. She then inserts three sticks of chalk (which may be coloured or plain white) between the fingers of the right hand and rubs them hard up and down the guitar neck so that they crumble and snap and disintegrate. The solo continues until the chalk is completely pulverized and there’s nothing in the hand but chalk dust.

6) The Spanking Solo

The player inserts a thin plank of wood between the guitar strings and the fingerboard. Using a hand saw she then starts to cut the plank. The solo consists of the vibrations and movement passed through the plank to the strings and the guitar. It ends when the plank is sawn through.

7) The Inflated Solo

The player holds a guitar horizontally. She takes six balloons and fills them with helium and varying amounts of gravel. One balloon is attached to each guitar string, so that the balloons float at various points above the guitar. Slowly, and with feeling, the player bursts each balloon in turn so that gravel showers down on the strings and body of the guitar.

8) The Stubble Solo

The player coats the guitar strings in lime-scented shaving foam. She then takes a disposable razor, preferably one with a swivel action head, and proceeds to give the strings a very close shave.

(Depilatory cream might be used as an acceptable alternative, but the use of hot wax would constitute a different composition, as would the use of an electric razor.)

9) The Dog Solo

The player finds a large dog, preferably of a bouncy, good-natured variety, and uses a length of string to attach the dog’s tail to the whammy bar of her guitar. The player now attempts to perform a version of the Shadows”Apache’, while the dog expresses its natural exuberance. The piece ends when dog and player can stand it no longer.

10) The Literate Solo

The player takes a text, preferably an English classic, and places it on a music stand in front of her. She begins to read the text silently to herself. Each time the word ‘the’ appears in the text the player strums the chord of B minor. Each time the word ‘a’ appears she strums the chord of A minor 7th. Each time the word ‘and’ occurs she strums the chord of C 6th. The piece may be of any length.

11) The Explosive Solo

The player takes three or four fireworks, say a Snowstorm, a Mount Stromboli, a Roman Candle and an Air Bomb Repeater, and weaves them in and out of the strings of her guitar. She then lights the blue touch paper and listens very carefully.

12) The Stretched Solo

The player stands on stage firmly holding a guitar. (A guitar strap should not be employed.) Two powerful bungee cords are used to attach the guitar to the back wall of the hall. The player strums diminished chords until, as the spirit takes her, she lets go of her guitar and watches it fly through the air and strike the back wall to produce remarkable sonic effects.

13) The Cool Solo

The player begins to perform a series of blues-based hammerons and pull-offs and slides with the fingers of her left hand. She then takes an aerosol of freezing medical spray and directs it at the playing hand, continuing until that hand loses all feeling and playing becomes impossible.

14) The Tinsnip Solo

The player sets up her guitar to produce a low, regular, howling feedback. She then takes a pair of tinsnips and cuts each string in turn, from low to high E.

15) The Restrained Solo

The left and right wrists of the player are put into two separate pairs of handcuffs by an assistant. The free handcuff on the left wrist is closed around the neck of the guitar, the free handcuff on the right wrist is closed around the strings close to the bridge. Thus restricted and with the loops of the handcuffs rattling against the strings, the player now attempts a rendition of ‘I Fought The Law’.

16) The Errol Flynn Solo

(It is said that, as a party piece, Errol Flynn used to take out his penis and let it drop on the piano keyboard to play individual notes and form a tune. How much more impressive if he’d played the guitar.)

The player attaches a rubber dildo to herself (she may be naked or fully clothed as she pleases) and holds the guitar in such a way that she can use the dildo to strum the chords of ‘Mull Of Kintyre’.

17) The Sub-Errol Flynn Solo

The player holds a guitar in front of her in a phallic posture. She bangs the neck of the guitar against a microphone stand until one or other droops.

18) the Free-Range Solo

The player takes half a dozen hen’s eggs and smashes them at various places on her guitar. She then takes an egg whisk and beats the eggs, and to an extent the guitar as well, until small peaks appear.

19) The Considerate Solo

The player holds a guitar in one hand and a house brick in the other. She considers the myriad possibilities, but does nothing.

20) The Prophylactic Solo

A large, opaque plastic bag is placed over the guitar and the player must wrest sounds from the instrument through the plastic.

(In a minor variation of this solo the plastic bag may be placed over the player instead.)

21) The Tarmac Solo

The player uses a two-hundred-yard-long lead to connect the guitar to the amplifier. She then picks up the guitar, leaves the stage, leaves the auditorium, and goes out into the nearest road, which should be only intermittently busy with traffic. The player sets the guitar down in the centre of the road and returns to the hall. The solo is ‘played’ when the first vehicle runs over the guitar, an incident which is not seen and is heard only as electrical noise conveyed along the lead. The player may be in or out of the hall when this happens.

(If the player only owns one guitar it is recommended that this piece be played as the last solo of the evening.)

There were another nineteen or so ‘compositions’ in a similar vein. When she had read them all Jenny Slade put down the pages, smiled and said, ‘I’ll gig.’ She tracked down Tom Scorn and agreed to play a series of solo concerts in which she would showcase these creations of his. She thought of it as a way of giving a helping hand to a young, up and coming musician.

Somewhat to her surprise he said he had already taken the first steps towards booking such a tour and had used her name to obtain an Arts Council grant. The guy was obviously quite a hustler. He was also decidedly well organized and well connected. He booked her into a variety of cabaret clubs, avant-garde jazz venues and small concert halls. He insisted on travelling with her and attending every date on the tour, saying he might need to rewrite or modify the compositions as they went along. She thought this was a mite over-conscientious and it certainly upped the travelling expenses, but she didn’t complain.

Neither did she complain when she saw that the posters for the early concerts read, ‘Jenny Slade plays the music of Tom Scorn’. As the senior partner she thought that her name ought to be bigger than his, rather than equal size, although at least hers came first. But as the tour progressed (and it was not a very long tour) the poster was redesigned so that it read, ‘Tom Scorn guitar solos, played by Jenny Slade’. This was, she supposed, factually accurate but she still believed that she was the draw, rather than this young, unknown composer. When the tour hit Amsterdam, Scorn decided that ‘guitar solos’ was not a sufficiently beguiling title so he came up with another, and now the posters read, ‘Thomas Scorn’s First Guitar Symphony’, and then in much smaller print, ‘Soloist, Jenny Slade’.

At this point Jenny did complain, loudly and at length, but Scorn seemed so young and enthusiastic, so naive, that it was hard to be very angry with him. And besides, she did enjoy playing the music; it was challenging and different, and audiences liked it. You could forgive a lot as long as things were going well on stage.

But things came to a complete head in a club in Wiesbaden when, two minutes before Jenny was due to go on stage, Scorn announced that he intended to conduct her performance. He’d bought a baton and a tailcoat specially for the occasion. It was too late to have a full blown argument about it and, short of kicking him off stage, Jenny didn’t know what she could do. She played her way through the solos, ignoring him as much as she could, refusing to make eye contact, and trying her best to make it clear to the audience that she was not being in any way conducted.

As the final chords of the last solo trickled away, Tom Scorn stood directly in front of her and bowed grandly to the audience. It was as if she did not exist for him any more, as if he alone had created the music out of nothing. He lapped up the applause and didn’t even offer a gesture of acknowledgement towards Jenny.

When she could stand it no longer she kicked him hard in the backside, so hard that he had to acknowledge her presence. He spun round, and she spun round too and she was holding her guitar at head height so that it swung like a tennis racket or indeed a frying pan, and Tom Scorn’s face made hard, sickening contact with the guitar, just a little way above the bridge, so that the strings started to vibrate and set up a long, aching discord.

‘That was a composition of my own,’ Jenny said. “The Dickhead Composer Solo.”’

When his face had stopped pulsating Tom Scorn said coolly, ever needing to take credit, ‘No, Jenny, that was a duet.’