ABSTRACT
While giving renowned composers such as Takehisha Kosugi and Yasunao Tone their due, the chapter also acknowledges the engineers whose influence on musical developments worldwide is overlooked and charts relationships between makers, performers, composers, and artists of multiple generations. The popular Brazilian expression gambiarra describes an improvised, informal way of solving an everyday problem when needed tools or resources are not available. Like “hacking” and Do it yourself, it reflects a way of dealing with the objects and issues that occupy the daily life of post-industrial societies and can be charted through the attitudes, ambitions, and art of musicians, composers, and instrument builders. The hacking virus has been spreading through Latin America for several years, fostering crossovers between disciplines and instigating various kinds of information sharing. Bypassing synthesis, the contact microphone facilitates the use of “found sound” as a working material and, like the saxophone and the electric guitar, is both instrument and invitation to rethink what music might be.
