Extended technique
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Extended technique is a term used in music to describe unconventional, unorthodox or "improper" s of singing, or of playing musical instruments.
Contents
Examples include
- added electronics or MIDI control
- unusual bowing technique: double stops and multiple stops, sul ponticello, sul tasto, Col legno
- breath technique or articulation: multiphonics, tonguing or flutter tonguing, continuous breathing or circular breathing, trumpet half-valve playing, humming while blowing, double buzz, blowing a disengaged mouthpiece or reed, unusual mutes
- Sprechstimme (speech-singing)
- ululation
- prepared piano and prepared guitar
- string piano
- keyboard technique involving the flat of hand, arm, or external device to create tone clusters
- unusual harmonics, including multiphonics
- glissandi, tuner glissando
- string microtones (vertical and linear)
- exaggerated tremolo
- exaggerated brass head-shakes
- activating keys or valves without blowing
- tapping or rubbing the soundboard of stringed instruments
- alternate fingerings
- altered tunings (scordatura)
- tapping
- combination of a mouthpiece of one instrument with the main body of another. (Alto saxophone mouthpiece combined with a standard trombone is a particularly successful permutation.)
- turning the mouthpiece of a woodwind instrument upside-down and playing as normal.
Well known performers and composers who use a notable amount of extended techniques include
- composer Henry Cowell
- composer John Cage
- composer Sofia Gubaidulina
- composer Helmut Lachenmann
- vocalist Joan La Barbara
- vocalist Shelley Hirsch
- vocalist and composer Meredith Monk
- vocalist and composer Maja Ratkje
- composer Krzysztof Penderecki
- composer and multireedist Joseph Celli
- pianist and composer David Tudor in his own work and in the prepared piano techniques of Cage and the New York School
- cellist and improviser Frances-Marie Uitti, two bows and curved bows
- violinist, violist and improviser Ernesto Rodrigues, curved bow
- flautist Ian Anderson
- composer Robert Erickson
- trombonist Stuart Dempster
- bassist Bertram Turetzky
- composer Ben Gaunt
- rock guitarist Tom Morello
- rock guitarist Eddie Van Halen
- rock guitarist Jimi Hendrix
- guitarist Derek Bailey
- guitarist Fred Frith
- classical guitarist Štěpán Rak
- guitarist Enver Izmailov
- jazz saxophonist Rahsaan Roland Kirk
- bassist Michael Manring
- guitarist Kenneth Johnston with Curable Interns
- lead singer and guitarist Jón Þór Birgisson of Sigur Rós who plays his guitar with a cello bow
See also
Reading
- Stuart Dempster's The Modern Trombone: A Definition of Its Idioms, ISBN 0520032527.
- Patricia and Allen Strange's The Contemporary Violin, ISBN 0520224094, and other books in The New Instrumentation series.
- Bertram Turetzky's The Contemporary Contrabass ISBN 0520063813.
- Michael Edward Edgerton's The 21st Century Voice, ISBN 0-8108-5354-X, and other books in The New Instrumentation series. Scarecrow Press, 2005.
External links
- [Woodwind Fingering charts]
- [New Sounds for Flute] by Mats Möller
- [The Orchestra: A User's Manual] by Andrew Hugill with The Philharmonia Orchestra. Includes definitions, descriptions and video interviews of extended techniques for most all common orchestral instruments.
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