Do composers care about your guitar?

Do composers care about your guitar?

Guest post by

M. P. Rønnei

Anyone who knows me is aware that I’m a big fan of Argentinian composers. Ástor Piazzolla, Alejandro Igesias-Rossi, Máximo Diego Pujol, among others. I think my fascination can be traced to the fact that Argentina’s population is overwhelmingly of European-decent – a later mass entrance that started around the 19^th and early 20^th centuries. This mixture of European and Latin-American history makes for an extremely beautiful and  colourful culture, and no art within it reflects that fact more than music.

One such musician from that culture is the composer-performer Narciso Saúl. I was listening to a work of his for guitar called “Boulevard San Jorge.” The beginning of the piece has the guitarist tap the fretboard within the  melody line to establish a rhythmic pulse:

I think it’s a great compositional technique, especially for the guitar. However, Saúl gets ready for the end of the piece by having the guitarist do a finger-sliding glissando on the 6^th string. Then, all of a sudden, SLAP! – the tonic-note string is pulled up and away from the fretboard, then let go like a water balloon off the Eiffel Tower. Whilst that might sound dramatic and interesting, as a guitarist it kind of disturbed me a bit. As I start to practice this piece myself, I’m wondering if I want to do that to my guitar.

Modern and post-modern composers seem to be more guilty of these techniques than their colleagues of   previous centuries. Granted, they’re composing for audiences (and critics) that have an ever-shrinking attention span. If a piece sounds new or radical, they may tell you that’s half the battle to win acclaim. Now, I’m not about to get into a debate of what “good music” is because I doubt that’s possible. But I will say that it’s not unheard of for a composer to create a piece that is even more outlandish than the previous attention-getting work the audience was listening to the year before. And there are plenty of works that are demanding rather questionable performance techniques.

Some of these techniques are with the piano. The composer Henry Cowell was gaining attention in the 1920′s by coining the term “String Piano,” referring to his method of having the performer use the strings (under the lid of the piano) to play instead of the keys. String Piano often meant striking the strings with the fingers or palm, plucking them, or even scraping the wound strings of the lower-registers with fingernails. Another example of newer methods is with a piece by post-modern composer John Cage entitled “Prepared Piano.” This piece requires the pianist to “prepare” the piano by placing pencils, erasers, bits of rubber, wood, or even metal on or between the strings. Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever priced a Steinway lately, but they’re pretty spendy. Putting a handful of nuts and bolts on the strings might not be high on the list of its owner. And if you tell a concert hall technician that you’d like to play an “all Cowell” concert on their $30,000 Bösendorfer, you’ll mostly get laughter (followed by a door slamming shut).

Other instruments include the standard strings of the orchestra. Some scores call for Col Legno Tratto which means to drag the wooden side of the bow across the strings, Col Legno Battuto which has the player hit the strings with the wooded part of the bow, and Sul Ponticello which means to bow the part of the strings that rest on the bridge. All of these can raise some eye brows when you consider that a professional bow can cost anywhere from $200-300 dollars to as much as $15,000 dollars and up. Performing Col Legno in a piece such as Gustav Holst’s The Planets (Mars) annoys some professional string players so much that they will take measures to protect their investment. They either bring a cheaper bow with them to use for this part (then switch back mid-piece), or they will pull out a pencil or a stick to slap against the strings. I’ve even heard of players only pretending to hit the strings, thinking they can get away with it since they’re surrounded by a whole group of players doing it anyway. (Remember junior high choir?)

Of course the guitar is not immune. The “SLAP” in the Saúl piece I mentioned at the beginning of this article is a (now) legitimate technique called the “Bartok Pizzicato.” Additionally, because some modern guitar composers cross-breed genres for new sounds, there are some flamenco techniques infiltrating the classical guitar repertoire. Golpe is the act of tapping on the soundboard. Tambora is another one that emulates the sound of a snare drum by bumping the palm of the hand against the guitar, as in “Suite Andina” by Agustín Barrios Mangoré. These techniques might seem alright to do on occasion, but what if the piece called for golpe to be played at fortissimo? Are you prepared to nick your guitar’s finish for the sake of modern art? What about the use of tambora for an extended period of time? Imagine the countless hours in the practice room using that technique, along with the performance time (not to mention hot lights beating on your guitar from the stage). The braces in your guitar are only glued on to the soundboard. The chances of one coming loose are not impossible if you keep whacking at it.

We’re not quite at the point where we need to strategize a revolt. Yet, if we start to see compositions come out asking for more of these potential technical abuses, I don’t think it unreasonable for guitarists to rise up and flat out refuse to play them. Pushing the envelope is generally welcomed in the arts, I know I encourage it. But what if it means to pluck the strings with your teeth à la Hendrix?

I leave the topic open to you. How far are you willing to go with your guitar for contemporary works? What about the other string player’s approach of making substitutions; would you bring an extra guitar to a performance to go all Pete Townsend on it?