Concert electric guitar composition: Techniques, challenges and creative possibilities

Abstract

The growing presence of the electric guitar in contemporary art music highlights the need for a focused investigation into its compositional role. This thesis examines the instrument within what is here defined as the domain of the concert electric guitar, that is, the use of the electric guitar in notated, composer-led art music contexts. The thesis functions both as a musicological study and as a compositional resource. It is structured around a theoretical section, addressed to musicologists and composers, which analyses the development of the electric guitar in art music and the ambiguities between popular and concert practices from which the notion of the concert electric guitar emerges. A practical component, specifically directed at composers, complements this discussion. The latter includes annotated examples, original audio and video demonstrations, and a collection of nine studies and a fugue composed by the author, conceived as compositional case studies.