Understanding extended technique on the guitar: A commendation to gesture

Abstract

The present article discusses the current notion of extended guitar technique, starting from the idea that curiosity and inventiveness is what propels the instrumentalist to search for new sounds. Together with the composer’s new embodied musical writing, it brings about the integration of the instrumental gesture to the structural musical thought. We researched the history and evolution of guitar technique and the way in which extended sound gestures progressively integrated the repertoire of established technique. The 1970s is recognized for originating new ways of combining gestures and for borrowing techniques from other music cultures. Finally, the article focuses on four fundamental models of sound and gestural expansion of the guitar based on aspects of timbre and textures, scordatura and micro-tonalism, percussive gesture and its relationship to noise in works by Brouwer, Ferraz, Kampela, and Lachenmann.