18th century guitar prerformance practice - Essay Example

18th Century Guitar Performance Practice Roll No: Teacher: 26th April 2009 University 18th Century Guitar Performance Practice There is a common conception among today's youngsters that guitar is an essentially 20th century instrument and the use of guitar in western music has commenced after late 19th century. They also have developed an idea that usage of guitar, as a universal musical instrument, has started with the evolution of jazz, blues and rock genre of music. Unfortunately, these ideas are quite wrong. Looking at the history of guitar in western musical scenario, we see that musicians started to use guitar in their musical compositions since 16th century. Guitar is actually a Spanish musical instrument and since its adoption as a sonorous musical instrument, the European musicians in their compositions used it widely (Kachur, 1993, 252). Guitar is famous for "its own distinguished concert repertory, became the global instrument for people - the only existing instrument, someone once said, on which it is 'impossible to make a nasty noise." (Bainesm, 1992, 134) At the very beginning, Guitar did not look like the today's figure-of-eight body shape. During the 16th century, guitar was a four-string instrument. It was smaller in size as compared to today's guitars and was mostly used for composition of folk music in places like, Portugal, Latin America and Spain. During the late 17th century and starting of the 18th century, guitars were having five strings and those were comparatively larger in size than their presiding models. However, guitar was a much-loved instrument for the musicians but people continued to experiment on guitars in order to enhance its musical orientation. The five and then six string guitars are results of such experiments. The six string guitars came into use since the 18th century and aftermath musicians started using and incorporating guitar music in a vigorous way in different types of music as well as compositions. Since 16th century to the modern times, there have been introduction of several techniques in the art of guitar playing. The art of guitar playing has reached to the level of culmination in the 20th century due to contribution of several artists but without the guitar, performance practice technique of the 18th century guitar player was never possible in such composite way. However, use of guitar started almost 2 centuries before the adoption of six-string guitar but it did not attract attention of the common people until 18th century. Initially, musicians used the "the strings of gut and over wound silk, and the lower-tuned strings had a core of nylon floss over wound with plated wire," for the purpose of creating music. (Bainesm, 135, 1992) Musicians were also engaged in the quest to produce better sound from the guitars and during the course of their quest, they started using the nylon strings. Nylon stings are still considered as essential aspects for classical guitar playing and this practice came into use since the 18th century. Traditionally there are two types of guitar playing techniques, 1) the Classical guitar playing and 2) the Flamenco style guitar paying. In the classical style guitar playing, the guitar player places the guitar on his left thigh and he places his left leg over the footrest of his sitting stool in such a way that it is raised a bit. The guitar player, as he starts playing the guitar, mainly plucks the guitar stings with his fingernails. Historical references say, "In the 19th century and earlier the flesh of the fingertip was more commonly used, as in lute playing." (Bainesm, 1992, 135) As a guitar player uses his fingers in a better way, the guitar music receives a masterful touch. The left hand fingers of the guitar player are used with the purpose of stopping the string from resonating, so that the required tone is produced and at the same time, he must learn to arch the strings in such ways that the adjacent strings freely vibrate. In order to provide the some remarkable articulation to the music, a guitar player also lays his fingers flat across over the strings, so that different notes are produced at one fret. This technique is known as "barre" in French and in Spanish, it is known as the "ceja". In addition to this genius, guitar players also use several other self-invented techniques, so that they can provide their music with unique aesthetic charm. On the other hand, a flamenco guitarist only uses nails in order to produce the flamenco style music. While playing, a flamenco guitarist places the guitar on his right thigh. Strings of a flamenco guitar are "set much closer to the frets to facilitate rapid passage work." (Bainesm, 1992, 135) The flamenco guitars also differ from classical guitars from the constructional perspective. These guitars are lighter than their classical counterparts are, as the cypress is for construction of the body of the guitar; that is why sound of the flamenco guitars is brighter and more prominent than the sound of classical guitars. Classical guitars are heavier in weight. Sound produced by such guitars is more round and it also has a greater power of sustenance. Though in the medieval period, musical scenario musicians employed some instruments that can be said to be quite guitar like but until 15th century, we do not find the actual instrument, which can be regarded as the predecessor of today's guitar. 15th century renaissance was not only facilitated by the academic disciplines and people's outlook to a particular subject, but at the same time, it created a huge impact over the aesthetics of common people. Because of such aesthetic impact, for the first time, the renaissance humanism musicians invented the four-string guitar. "Guitars of 16th and 17th centuries were much smaller than their modern counterparts and featured an inlaid rose and four courses of strings. The guitar was especially popular in 16th century France." (Randel, 1999, 275) The 17th musical scenario was dominated largely by the five course guitars. These kinds of guitars were actually invented in Italy and those were known in the local language as the "chitarra spagnola." (Esses, 1992, 172) Francesco Corbetta and Robert de Visee were considered as the most renowned figures, when it came to music composition through five string guitars. Italy was also the birthplace of sex-string guitars. Approximately during the 1780s, the six string guitars were originated from this place and by the 1800s, these new type of guitars gained huge appreciation from musicians across Europe. It is though the genius of Spaniard Dionysio Aguado, (Hector and Hugh Macdonald, 2002, 88) that the six string guitar's musical completeness of the six string guitars was realized by musicians and his method-book, which was published for the first time in 1825, helped to a great extent in introducing the modern guitar playing techniques. Some of the great 18th and 19th century guitarists, whose contribution cannot be denied in the field of modern guitar playing technique, are Matteo Carcassi, Napoleon Coste, Antonio de Torres Jurado and Johann Kasper Mertz. (Randel, 1999, 275) Due to the invention of electric guitars and different range of toolboxes, it has become much easier for 20th century musicians to create different types of sounds for different types of compositions or different genres of music. At the same time, it is quite painful to observe that the number of classical guitar players is decreasing at a fierce rate. In all types of western musical traditions, including jazz, blues, rock and pop, the musicians and composers are frequently using electric guitar sounds in order to produce the effective aesthetical appeal for the audience. (Duncan, 1980, 1-3) Today's generation believe that guitar music is essentially dependent over techno aspects and due to this reason, they also feel more inclined to learn the use of gadgets rather than actual guitar playing. If we search from the biographical references of some of the most renowned guitar players of 20th century, namely, B.B. King, Eric Clapton ("Eric Clapton", n.d), Jimi Hendrix, David Gilmour (Biography, 2009) to Slash, we will see each one of them, since their childhood, developed their musical instinct with the help of classical guitar playing. Later on, they started using electric devices with their guitars and produced immortal music. A person, who is a sincere student of music and who feels the urge to find out the inspirations behind the music of these great artists, receives his answer through guitar playing of the 18th century artists. These artists contributed largely in developing the musical sensibility of the modern, legendary guitar players through their performance practice. "Performance practice is an attempt to return, inasmuch as this is feasible, to the composer's original conception of a musical work, and to re-enact how music sounded at the time of its initial presentation. Such an endeavor is by no means an easy one, entailing as it does the bringing back of much that has been lost or forgotten over time." (Jackson, 2005, ix) Across the world, we see that great musicians or the popular bands are giving their performance to their admirers. At the same time, we also see that before their actual performance, they practice in the arena without any crowd. The same thing is very much noticed in case of the bands, as they not only practice on a regular basis while they are not also amidst their tight schedule of tight performance. Unless a musician or a group of musicians is not performing on a regular basis, there is always a higher chance that their music will deviate largely than the kind of music, they actually produced at the very beginning. At the same time, there is also a high chance that the kind of musical aesthetic appeal, they have produced during the time of their composition, has deviated to a great extent from that level of excellence, causing a great deal of criticism against their creative musical spree. It is due to the lack of performance practice and lack of co-ordination between the groups that several famous musical groups have become subjects of great hostility from their admirers as well as from lovers of music. The performance practice is mainly aimed at bringing better musical understanding among the musicians and at the same time, elevating their music at a better level. In the context of performance practice, Richard Wagner once commented, "Your piece of music should be heard exactly as you yourself heard it when you wrote it downnothing should be added and nothing taken away; the performer is to be [like the composer's] second self." (Wagener; quoted in Jackson, 2005, ix) Performance practice, thus, helps a composer largely in bringing musical fulfillment to his compositions. While a composer is composing a piece of music, it is normal that he will perceive his music in a particular way but at the same time, when he tries to give it a materialized form, he finds that there are several differences between his level of perception and the materialized form of music. It is through the help of performance practice that a composer is able to diminish this gap and finally, it helps him to produce more complete and aesthetically appealing music, keeping in parity with his musical genius. It has been observed that composers often fail to comply with certain factors in their later performances compared to their first performances namely, the kind of voices, instruments, singers, or players that the composer has preferred. There are certain external factors also that include exact speed or speed fluctuation or the overall level of musical dynamism. As a performer is performing over stage before a huge audience, he automatically feels to add something of his own to the original performance. This is one of the main problems that a composer often faces. Thus, he has to provide a certain extent of relaxed space in his composition, so that if the performer adds certain dimensions to the original piece, it does not feel that the addition has come from somewhere and at the same time, the musical hands also have the adequate opportunity to comply with the performer. Technical aspects like tuning level and pitch level are also important. Thus, when a composer is composing a piece of music, he is requited to keep all these aspects in his mind and needs to organize his composition in such ways that the audience successfully receives adequate musical aesthetic support from the composition, even though some kind of alterations are made. Looking at the 19th and 20th century musical scenario, we can say that every legendary figure of guitar playing has developed his skills by the art of performance practice. At the same time, it may seem apparently that performance practice is a quite easy process and it is not tough to produce the same kind of music according to the manuscript but in the actual situation, the process of attaining the equal level of perfection is quite difficult. The modern western music is very much dependent over group and there are varieties of musicians, who, with the purpose of producing the actual musical effect play their respective parts in the total composition. Thus, it is understood that today's music production means a completeness, where everyone must know their limitations as well as freedom and they need to balance between both these aspects, depending over their musical instinct. However, it is due to the momentary impetus or lack of concentration that a musician may fail to play his part. In a concert or a group, performance magnitude of such failure expands and it influences in a great manner over performance of the whole group. Occurrence of such failure is quite normal but such incident can be easily avoided if the group of people is brought to practice on a regular basis. It is through the performance practice that a musician automatically develops his musical instinct in order to know where he must balance and to which degree he must do it. As we look into the modern context of guitar playing, we find that master guitar players are very much focused over the aspect of repeated practice. At the same time, they are also quite enthusiastic about participating at a greater rate to programs. It is not only due to the fame and due to monetary factor that the guitar maestros are more inclined towards attending more number of performances but they are actually keen over judging their capacity of perfect guitar playing. They understand that more they will attend such performance practice sessions, they will be able to judge their capabilities by themselves that at what point they are faltering and what are areas that require further development. Accordingly, they cultivate over producing better music. Audience is also a good judge of the mastery of the guitar player and it is through the reaction of audience, the guitar player judges largely about his level of performance. Today, as electronic gadgets are used at a more frequent rate that is why, it is always not possible for the audience to understand if the guitar player is actually deviating from his origination composition and what kind of improvisations, he is making through his use of guitar. In order to avoid such situations, the guitar players often participate in more numbers of unplugged performances, where they do not have to use electronic devices. Number of audience, at the same time, is also quite less and those who are present in the audience seats, they understand the art of guitar playing pretty well. Getting back into the history again, we find that the modern day guitar players have received such impetus from the 18th century guitar players, who depended greatly over the technique of performance practice with the intention to elevate their musical perfection to a higher extent. 18th century is considered among theorists of music and historians as one of the brightest era of guitar playing. However, in his book A Concise History of the Classic Guitar, Graham Wade observes, "Even allowing for a recent resurgence of interest in the music of Santiago de Murica, the first half of the 18th century could never be considered with the hindsight as one of the finest eras of guitar playing." (Wade, 2001, 50) However, there were several great figures of music but their compositions do not reflect any instances that would clearly pronounce the growing interest of the music lovers about the art of classical guitar playing. Through Domenico Scarlatti's compositions, however, guitar playing received a different kind of boost. The great composer was never a professional guitar player by himself, at least there was no such clear hint but at the same time his compositions clearly showed that he was greatly influenced by the musical versatility that guitar could produce. "Some of Scarlatti's wildest dissonances seem to imitate the sound of the hand striking the belly of the guitar, or the savage chords that at times almost threaten to rip the strings from the instrument." (Wade, 2001, 51) Other artists, including Francois Campion and Santiago de Murica brought forth wide range of musical experiments with guitar and their experiments were greatly appreciated by people in different parts of Europe. It is during the same time, guitar was considered as a highly romantic instrument and we find several instances that compared guitar as a musical instrument from the Utopia. Despite all these appreciations, the great guitar players of Europe were engaged in the process of performance practice with the intention of developing their music. (Wade, 2001, 54) The guitar players understood it quite well that as the guitar is a highly delicate instrument and if its musical orientation is not controlled properly then the whole composition would suffer to a great extent. At the same time, use of five course guitars was also declining largely and the tradition of lute playing also experienced the same kind of fate. Since the middle of the 18th century, musicians adopted the six course classical guitars and musical tradition of the age received a great deal of boost due to origination of the instrument. Since the time the six string classical guitar was invented, the musicians realized about the kind of versatile music, it could produce. At the same time, they also realized that if they had to make the best use of the guitar, they would need to understand the instrument in a detailed manner. It is due to their urge to understand the new 6-course guitar, they became more dependent over the technique of performance practice. It is though the art of "research and performance" they would be able to "standardize pedagogical techniques which will, in-turn, help the future progress of the guitar." (Glise, 1997, 3) Looking at the modern scenario and the kind of experimentation that musicians are now making with guitar, we understand that how far results of such performance practice are helping today's musicians. During their course of performance practice, the guitar players of 18th century used to focus over different types of technical aspects including the application of fingers or the tempo of strumming/plucking or to beat the hollow part of the guitar so that it would add to the musical aesthetics. (Tyler, Sparks, 2007, 260) However, such practices were mainly done among the artists of Spain and Italy but guitar artists across Europe were gradually adopting such techniques and they were also applying those to their own methods of guitar playing. The performance practice has also introduced different types of guitar playing and positioning of the right hand. "The practice continued well into the nineteenth century, but influential authorities," urged for to place the right hand in a more free way. (Tyler, Sparks, 2007, 260) Several such technical changes have been introduced and the successor guitar players successfully adopted those in the later phase. Musicians of the later age realized that "The use of appropriate ornamentation would enhance the performance of those pieces from the Renaissance and Baroque period." (Skinner and Burley, 2002, 10) Since the commencement of the 19th century, America started adopting slowly the techniques of playing guitar and at the same time, general people of the nation came out from the scope of such assumption that guitar is an exotic foreign instrument. (Noonan, 2008, 9) Slowly use of guitar became highly popular in American music. With the progress of time, we see that American artists have also contributed to a considerable extent in the art of guitar playing. Perhaps the great deal of development happened in the field with the hands of African American guitar players of the nation. Emergence of jazz, blues and rock cult has provided the art of guitar playing with both commercial and aesthetic fulfillment. However, behind the art of successful guitar playing contribution of the performance practice cannot be denied. 18th century guitar performance practice opened up new horizons for the artists of the contemporary era, so that they can contribute largely to their music as well as in the music of their successors. Looking at the modern scenario and at the art of today's guitar playing, there is no denial of the fact that due to performance practice of the 18th century guitarists, so many new techniques of guitar playing have been invented. Through these techniques, they have not only rectified their music but at the same time, they have also influenced artists of the future, so that they can contribute to their art of guitar playing and at the same time, introduce new elements to the art of guitar playing. References Baines, Anthony, 1992. The Oxford companion to musical instruments, Oxford: Oxford University Press Berlioz, Hector and Hugh Macdonald, 2002, Berlioz's orchestration treatise, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Biography, 2009. David Gilmour Music, available at: http://www.davidgilmour.com/biography.htm (accessed on April 18, 2009) Boyd, Malcolm and Juan Jos Carreras, 2006, Music in Spain During the Eighteenth Century, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Duncan, Charles, 1980. Art of Classical Guitar Playing, Suzuki Method International Esses, Maurice, 1992, Dance and Instrumental Differences in Spain During the 17th and Early 18th Centuries: History and background, music and dance, Wales: Pendragon Press "Eric Clapton", n.d. available at: http://www.ericclapton.com/ (accessed on April 18, 2009) Glise, Anthony, 1997. Classical guitar pedagogy: a handbook for teachers, Missouri: Mel Bay Publications Jackson, Roland John, 2005. Performance practice: a dictionary-guide for musicians, London: Routledge Kachur, Lewis, 1993, Picasso, Popular Music and Collage Cubism (1911-12), The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 135, No. 1081 (April), pp. 252-260 Noonan, Jeffrey, 2008, The guitar in America: Victorian era to jazz age, Mississippi: Univ. Press of Mississippi Randel, Don Michael, 1999, The Harvard concise dictionary of music and musicians, Cambridge: Harvard University Press Skinner, Tony and Raymond Burley, 2002, Classical guitar playing, London: Registry Publications Ltd Tyler, James and Paul Sparks, 2007. The Guitar and Its Music: From the Renaissance to the Classical Era, Oxford : Oxford University Press Wade, Graham, 2001. A Concise History of the Classic Guitar, Pacific, Missouri: Mel Bay Publications Read More