exit*glue

Talkbox (Seth F. Josel)
in: The Techniques of E-Guitar Playing, p. 92 (Bärenreiter 2025)

Karlheinz Essl's exit*glue, for e-guitar and trombone, attaches the tube of the talkbox to an auxiliary trombone bell mounted on a microphone stand. This DIY "amplifier" serves to bring the e-guitar somewhat closer in sonic character to the trombone. The guitar is heard as such, but an odd resonance emerges from the prepared bell, one which interacts with the live trombone in unique and often startling ways. In the passage in Example 242, an EBow and bottleneck interact in a particularly poignant manner with the trombone, whose pitch material circles around the guitar's. In a resonant space, the frequencies tend to blend until momentary disorientation occurs - an intention suggested by the "gluing" or fusing together of two vastly different sound worlds.