Unconventional ways of playing cello: from extended towards multi-stylistic techniques of the 21st century

Doctoral student: Gintarė Kaminskaitė
Supervisors:

Abstract

Gintarė Kaminskaitė

The modernist movement has had an impact on Western academic music as well as other art forms in the 20th century. As a consequence, composers and performers who collaborated closely pushed to expand the sonoric possibilities of instrumental expression and discovered various new ways of producing sound. To describe the unconventional ways of playing the term ‘extended techniques’ was coined in the last quarter of the 20th century. Recently, multi-stylistic and cross-cultural influences have become the main source of revitalizing the search for new ways of playing string instruments.

The research paper analyses the alteration tendencies of unconventional cello playing techniques, linking them to multifaceted musical cultural contexts. Moreover, fusion of academic and non-academic music, interaction of genres and styles, influence of globalisation and cultural assimilation on creative processes and new ways of playing cello are carefully researched. The aim is to discover and highlight the common and opposing features between modern techniques of the 20th century and the multi-stylistic techniques of the 21st century.

Some of the compositions performed in the creative part of the project are analysed in the research paper. Thus, statements suggested in the research part are consolidated empirically, consequently, the recommendations on refining the usage of extended and the 21st century multi-stylistic techniques are being formed and presented. The research targets classical cellists with academic readiness as well as music creators seeking to enrich their compositions with the new sonoric means of expression.