Cross Lamina

Lamina refers to the thinnest unit of a geological stratum, while Cross Lamina describes layers of laminae set at different angles, coexisting and intermingling. My solo guitar piece Lamina (2018), commissioned by Gaku Yamada, used the closeness of quarter-tone intervals as a metaphor in its title, and Cross Lamina (2022) was conceived in a similar way. The piece is written for two guitars—one in standard tuning, the other tuned three-quarters of a tone apart—whose playing techniques are interwoven, an idea that is by no means extraordinary.

What these two works share is that, for my music, they make relatively extensive use of extended techniques (though none of them are particularly rare). Cross Lamina, however, incorporates more noise elements. As a result, the collision of quarter-tones—features common in my more recent works— and the percussive sonorities form the central components of the piece.