Extended technique
Extended technique is a term used to describe unconventional, unorthodox or "improper" techniques of playing musical instruments or singing.
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
- Unusual harmonics, including multiphonics
- glissandi
- 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
Well known performers and composers who use a notable amount of extended techniques include:
- composer Sofia Gubaidulina
- vocalist Joan La Barbara
- vocalist Shelley Hirsch
- vocalist and composer Meredith Monk
- 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 (see also Michael Bach)
- violinist, violist and improviser Ernesto Rodrigues, curved bow (see also Michael Bach)
- rock flautist Ian Anderson
- composer Robert Erickson
- trombonist Stuart Dempster
- bassist Bertram Turetzky
- rock guitarist Tom Morello
See also
Reading
- Stuart Dempster's The Modern Trombone: A Definition of Its Idioms, ASIN 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 ASIN 0520063813.
External link
- 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.