PhD project
The amorphous 6-string
This research intents to redefine the limits of the electric guitar.
- Duration
- 2017
- Contact
- Arend Strootman
The limitations of the electric guitar are also the limitations for the composer. Registers, spectrum, resonance, decay: all musical parameters are questioned in the search for a new and unheard sound on the instrument. This research intents to redefine the limits. Not the guitar should be questioned but the instrumentalist playing it, always willing to accept the challenge together with, or via, an guitar maker. Sonic challenges given by composers can, via the performer, result in a variety of modifications to the instrument.
The translation of musical ideas written in the conventional musical notation into constructional recommendations for the instrument makes the the guitar a fluid, amorphous actor. The triunity composer-guitarist-guitar builder becomes responsible for the improvement of the in depth understanding of the possibilities of the instrument.