The Expansion of Improvisatory Techniques and Sound-Palette Specific to the Fretless Electric Guitar

The fretless electric guitar remains relatively unexplored due to its young age and ‘prepared’ nature, and it features increasingly in popular music and the neo-traditional music(s) of West-Asia. This research considers its use in broader, more contemporary, and eclectic settings – both as a solo instrument and within different ensembles – exploring extended performance techniques; including an engagement with technological augmentation (expressly the use of effects pedals, loops, E-bow etc.), to discern new timbres.

My personal approaches to improvisation using the fretless electric guitar have been informed by extensive performance experience, spanning a variety of ensembles, genres, and contexts, including: cross-cultural projects (predominantly with Middle-Eastern and West-Asian musicians); free- improvisation workshops (both leading and taking part); contemporary and popular music recording sessions; live electronic and technological enhancement within ensembles; the accommodation of improvisation within through-composition; and solo performance.

Drawing from my recently published article on this subject (Music and Practice: vol. 4, New Perspectives on Technique and Practice, April 2019), this lecture-recital will begin with a discussion of various performance techniques specific to the fretless electric guitar, as well as any discoveries of new techniques and sounds which have emerged from my personal practice. This will be followed by a solo, part-composed/part-improvised performance, demonstrating how such techniques and sounds might be used in a contemporary music context.