Authenticity in Transcribing
(2024)
author(s): Marie-Lou Debels
published in: KC Research Portal
This research explores the concept of authenticity in transcription. It is applied to Béla Bartók's Six Dances in Bulgarian Rhythm, movements one, two and five. By prioritising different aspects, the overall look of the transcription is shaped. Examples of these aspects are the sonic possibilities of the chosen or original instrumentation, the general style of the composer and the piece, one's own musical context, the technical abilities of the players... All these aspects could be considered as a form of authenticity. The first chapter elaborates on the concept and discusses methods of transcription. The second chapter analyses the history of the classical guitar, including its transcriptions. The guitar's search for a place in the classical mainstream has encouraged guitarists throughout the centuries to write transcriptions. Throughout history, the concept of authenticity in these transcriptions has changed. The final chapter discusses the entire process of transcribing, from the intentions behind selecting the piece to the obstacles and dilemmas that arose during the process. It shows that the transcribing part is as important as the individual practice and rehearsals. They alternate and influence each other. The Six Dances in Bulgarian Rhythm were of great importance to Bartók. Today they are not as popular as his Six Romanian Folk Dances but given their historical context they deserve to be heard more in today's classical music scene. Finally, it becomes clear that the abstract musical idea of the composer should be kept clear from the beginning to the end of the transcription process.
fimbul
(2024)
author(s): Tor Einar Bekken
published in: Research Catalogue
Improvised music for solo guitar, influenced by the works of performers/composers such as John Fahey, Joseph Allred, Derek Bailey, Wendy Eisenberg, and others.
Heterotopia of the Practice Room: Casting and Breaking the Illusion of Tristan Murail’s Tellur for Solo Guitar
(2023)
author(s): Maarten Stragier
published in: Journal for Artistic Research
A combination of highly unusual extended playing techniques with open intabulated notation makes the solo guitar work Tellur altogether unique in Tristan Murail’s catalogue. When placed in the broader discursive context of Murail’s compositional philosophy, this unique configuration of elements causes a quandary. The composer aims to integrate “the totality of sonic phenomena” into his compositional language, and within this context he maintains a traditional view of musical authorship. However, how does a performer reconcile this perspective with a score of which the combination of unconventional techniques and open notation leaves so much of the sonic material to their individual discretion and know-how?
This exposition offers the first performance-led study of this conundrum in Murail’s music and writings. Using Lydia Goehr’s historical study of the work-concept as a point of orientation, I explore the functioning of Werktreue in Tellur. I show that the processual structures that should make up its “ideal” score are correlative with the composer’s abstraction of the guitar, which is in its turn correlative with the guitarist’s unconventioned heuristics. I argue that confronting traditional musical authorship with this system of correlation creates a discursive aporia, but not a practical impossibility. Rather the discursive aporia brings to light what I call the “heterotopia of the practice room.” In this heterotopia, I as a performer navigate a musical reality that simultaneously reflects and contests a tradition of classical music performance built around the regulative work-concept.
The Transfigured Guitar of Alberto Ginastera Sonata for Guitar, op. 47
(2022)
author(s): Silvia Escamilla Jiménez
published in: KC Research Portal
This research takes as a starting point the Alberto Ginastera's Sonata for Guitar, op. 47 (1976) The Sonata represents, within Ginastera's musical trajectory, an example of synthesis of his work, due to the variety of compositional and motivic material that he manages to link. Its interest relies in the way in which avant-garde compositional techniques, such as serialism or twelve-tone technique, are mixed with folklore rhythms and popular elements typical of Argentine traditional music.
It offers the opportunity to verify in his compositional practice the theoretical approaches on music that the composer had presented in his previous works. Discovering the origin of the thematic and rhythm sources of the Sonata for Guitar by Ginastera is an invitation to inquire in the valuable atmosphere of Argentine folklore.
Since its premiere, the Sonata has attracted increasing interest for its innovative contributions to contemporary music. The result is a tribute to the guitar, the Argentine folk music and the avant-garde music. As far as the guitar as an instrument is concerned, in it the composer explores a great variety of innovative resources that verify its suitability to transmit the contents of contemporary music, while at the same time pays off the debt it had with Argentine folklore, present in its rhetoric and symbolically evoked, but now transfigured into a reality.
Finally, this research presents some connections between this guitar piece and the String Quartet No. 1, op. 20, that Ginastera composed more than twenty years before.
Innovative Practice of Enhancing Musical Perceptions
(2021)
author(s): Noppakorn Auesirinucroch
published in: KC Research Portal
The human sensory system is complex and enigmatic but yet, attractive. Why are we continuously applying expressional words from another sensory modality and understanding it without any suspicion? In classical music, usage of the term dolce (sweet) to specify particular musical tones is frequently applied despite the word initially used to express a character of specific taste, which seems unrelated to music. This curiosity affects the researcher to explores a specific sensorial phenomenon, a crossmodal correspondence.
The study's objectives are to comprehend and utilise the topic of crossmodal correspondences to design multisensory performance with an emphasis on sound-taste associations. This exposition contains scientific reviews on crossmodal correspondences, interviews with a neurologist, and personal experience at a fine dining restaurant; additionally, the related subject, synaesthesia. Lastly, a review on the process of creating a flavour musical piece for solo guitar in collaboration with a prominent Thai composer, Piyawat Louilarpprasert, has been elaborated.
Eon: Blurring lines on a small (time-) travel guitar
(2019)
author(s): Andreas Aase
published in: Research Catalogue
A simple reconfiguring of a mass-produced guitar results in an affordable and comfortable instrument that straddles the gap between the fiddle and the classical guitar. The instrument’s playability gives birth to a new set of eight guitar compositions with two main components throughout: Partly reworked versions of eclectic ideas from my youth decades ago, partly new melodies and improvisations inspired by Scandinavian traditions. A long-held desire for softer dividing lines and cross-bleed between disparate bodies of musical material is expressed in a process of composition, performance and recording that simultaneously redefines memory, dreams and connotations.
The artistic results constitute the primary text and will be represented as videos and sound clips throughout. The written text leads up to, and/or comments on, the artistic issues tackled in the videos.
Thinking through the guitar: the sound-cell-texture chain
(last edited: 2023)
author(s): Marlon Titre
connected to: Academy of Creative and Performing Arts
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
Although the guitar has been part of the classical music tradition for centuries, writing for the guitar remains a formidable challenge for many composers. Where orchestral instruments have a long history of scoring guides that help composers develop their craft, the number of studies dedicated to guitar scoring remains scarce. This has led to a myriad of scoring problems in guitar works written by non-guitarist composers, often evidenced in unplayable passages and underdeveloped textures. The present study of Marlon Titre aims to fill this gap by establishing and developing guidelines for effective use of the classical guitar__s scoring potential. These guidelines are described through the sound-cell-texture chain, a model introduced in this study that identifies building blocks for guitar scoring that are believed to give the composer access to the scoring potential for the guitar. The second aim of this study is to use the findings of the research to compose a set of new guitar etudes.
Creative performer | Performing creative
(last edited: 2022)
author(s): Arend Jan Hendrik Strootman
connected to: KC Research Portal
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
Results contribution lectorate 'music, education and performance' KC 2020-2021
Source Signals 2
(last edited: 2021)
author(s): Kees Tazelaar
connected to: KC Research Portal
This exposition is in progress and its share status is: visible to all.
Source Signals is an album with music I recorded between 1981 and 1985. The album showcases a transition from pop-oriented guitar tracks to experiments with electronics in which the guitar was the main sound source. Several bass guitar overdubs and one guitar overdub were made before the album was released in 2019. My rediscovery of these tracks and the decision finally to release them also triggered a renewed interest in the guitar as a musical instrument.
After the LP Source Signals was released, I had been playing guitar at home almost on a daily basis, initially without a concrete plan. Gradually, however, an idea developed to compose an acousmatic multichannel work in which guitar playing would be the only source. This became Source Signals 2, an acousmatic eight-channel composition of almost 28 minutes.