Cover of Henry Cowell: Piano Music, with Henry Cowell demonstrating the longitudinal sweeping string piano technique

Extended technique is a term used in music to describe unconventional, unorthodox or "improper" techniques of singing, or of playing musical instruments. Image File history File links Henry_Cowell_playing_string_piano. ... Image File history File links Henry_Cowell_playing_string_piano. ... Henry Cowell (March 11, 1897 - December 10, 1965) was an American composer, musical theorist, pianist, teacher, publisher, and impresario. ... String piano is a term coined by American composer-theorist Henry Cowell to collectively describe those pianistic techniques in which sound is produced by direct manipulation of the strings, rather than by striking of the pianos keys. ... // Music is an art form consisting of sound and silence expressed through time. ... Harry Belafonte singing, photograph by C. van Vechten Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, which is often contrasted with speech. ... A musical instrument is a device constructed or modified with the purpose of making music. ...

Although the use of extended technique was uncommon in the common practice period (c. 1600 - 1900), extended techniques are more common in modern classical music since about 1900. Extended techniques have also flourished in popular musics, which are typically less constrained by notions of "proper" technique than are traditional orchestral music. It should be noted that nearly all jazz performers make significant use of extended techniques of one sort or another, particularly in more recent styles like free jazz or avant-garde jazz. Musicians in free improvisation have also made heavy use of extended techniques. In music the common practice period is a long period in western musical history spanning from before the classical era proper to today, dated, on the outside, as 1600-1900. ... 20th century classical music was extremely diverse, ranging from the late Romantic style of Sergei Rachmaninoff to the complete serialism of Pierre Boulez, and from the simple triadic harmonies of minimalist composers such as Philip Glass to the musique concrète of Pierre Schaeffer and the microtonal music adopted by... Year 1900 (MCM) was an exceptional common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar, but a leap year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar. ... Popular music is music belonging to any of a number of musical styles that are accessible to the general public and are disseminated by one or more of the mass media. ... This article needs additional references or sources for verification. ... This article or section cites very few or no references or sources. ... Avant-jazz (also known as avant-garde jazz) is a style of music and improvisation that combines elements of avant-garde art music composition with elements of traditional jazz. ... Free improvisation or free music is improvised music without any rules beyond the taste or inclination of the musician(s) involved; in many cases the musicians make an active effort to avoiding overt references to recognizable musical genres. ...

Most contemporary composers strive to explore the possibility of different instruments, cooperating with musicians in order to expand the "vocabulary" of given instruments. This undoubtedly increases the diversity of instrumental colors for contemporary pieces. However, some extended techniques are exceedingly difficult to master, or require instruments in uncommonly good condition; instruments are sometimes custom made to explore extended techniques. A custom made instrument is a musical instrument that is considered to be of ones own design or a modification or extension of a defined guideline of a certain instrument. ...

Examples

Vocal

• Sprechstimme (speech-singing)
• overtone singing (harmonic singing, or vocal multiphonics)
• ululation
• beatboxing (vocal percussionists)

Sprechgesang (German for speech song) or Sprechstimme (speech voice) is a technique of vocal production halfway between singing and speaking. ... Physical representation of first (O1) and second (O2) overtones. ... Multiphonics are an extended technique in instrumental music in which a monophonic instrument (one which generally produces only one note at a time) is made to produce several notes at once. ... An ululation is a long, wavering, high-pitched sound resembling the howl of a dog or wolf. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ...

String instruments

Fred Frith with his third bridge guitars, ±1982.

• unusual bowing technique: double stops and multiple stops, sul ponticello, sul tasto, col legno
• prepared piano
• string piano
• prepared guitar
• third bridge guitar
• moodswinger
• sliding with a screwdriver, zippo lighter, slide or any other metal piece.
• string microtones (vertical and linear)
• exaggerated tremolo
• tapping or rubbing the soundboard of stringed instruments
• alternate fingerings
• altered tunings (scordatura)
• tapping

Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (800x1199, 135 KB)[edit] Summary Fred Frith sporting some of his homemade guitars (early 1980s). ... Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (800x1199, 135 KB)[edit] Summary Fred Frith sporting some of his homemade guitars (early 1980s). ... Fred Frith performing at the Moers Jazz Festival, 1 June 1998. ... Fred Frith displaying some of his homemade 3rd bridge guitars, circa 1982. ... A cello bow In music, a bow is a device pulled across the strings of a string instrument in order to make them vibrate and emit sound. ... A double stop, in music terminology, is the act of playing two notes simultaneously on a stringed instrument, for example a violin, a viola, a cello or a guitar. ... Multi-stopping means to play more than 2 notes (Conventionally) of string playing at a time. ... This is a list of musical terms that are likely to be encountered in printed scores. ... This article will be merged with Italian musical terms at some point in the near future. ... Col legno (Italian for with the wood) is a method of playing bowed string instruments (particularly the violin, viola, cello, and double bass) whereby the strings are struck with the wood of the bow rather having the hair pulled across them. ... A prepared piano is a piano that has had its sound altered by placing objects (preparations) between or on the strings or on the hammers or dampers. ... String piano is a term coined by American composer-theorist Henry Cowell to collectively describe those pianistic techniques in which sound is produced by direct manipulation of the strings, rather than by striking of the pianos keys. ... A prepared guitar is a guitar which has had its timbre altered by placing various objects on or between the instruments strings, including other extended techniques. ... Fred Frith displaying some of his homemade 3rd bridge guitars, circa 1982. ... In 2006 luthier Yuri Landman built the Moodswinger, a 12 string overtone zither for Aaron Hemphill of the noiseband Liars The Moodswinger is a custom made string instrument made by Yuri Landman. ... Microtonal music is music using microtones -- intervals of less than a semitone, or as Charles Ives put it, the notes between the cracks of the piano. ... Tremolo is a musical term with two meanings: A rapid repetition of the same note, a rapid variation in the amplitude of a single note, or an alternation between two or more notes. ... This article is about the music technique. ... The sounding board is the largest part of a string musical instruments body. ... A scordatura (literally Italian for mistuning) is an alternate tuning used for the open strings of a string instrument. ... This article is about the music technique. ...

Electronic

• added electronics or MIDI control
• Turntablism
• Circuit bending

Electronics is the study of the flow of charge through various materials and devices such as, semiconductors, resistors, inductors, capacitors, nano-structures, and vacuum tubes. ... Musical Instrument Digital Interface, or MIDI, is a system designed to transmit information between electronic musical instruments. ... Turntablism is the art ofSubscript text manipulating sounds and creating music using phonograph turntables and an audio mixer. ... Probing for bends using a jewellers screwdriver and alligator clips Circuit bending is the creative short-circuiting of low voltage, battery-powered electronic audio devices such as guitar effects, childrens toys and small synthesizers to create new musical instruments and sound generators. ...

Woodwind or brass instruments

• overblowing
• exaggerated brass head-shakes
• activating keys or valves without blowing
• combination of a mouthpiece of one instrument with the main body of another, for example, using an alto saxophone mouthpiece on a standard trombone.
• turning the mouthpiece of a woodwind instrument upside-down and playing as normal.
• 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

These water valves are regulated by handles. ... // Scuba diving and industrial breathing sets Nemrod twin-hose diving regulator made in the 1980s. ... The saxophone (colloquially referred to as sax) is a conical-bored instrument of the woodwind family, usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece like the clarinet. ... The trombone is a musical instrument in the brass family. ... The mouthpiece of a woodwind instrument is that part of the instrument which is placed partly in the players mouth. ... A woodwind instrument is a musical instrument in which sound is produced by blowing through a mouthpiece against an edge or by a vibrating reed, and in which the pitch is varied by opening or closing holes in the body of the instrument. ... Breathing transports oxygen into the body and carbon dioxide out of the body. ... Articulation may refer to several topics: In speech, linguistics, and communication: Topic-focus articulation Articulation score Place of articulation Manner of articulation In music: Musical articulations (staccato, legato, etc) In education: Articulation (education) In sociology: Articulation (sociology) This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages... Multiphonics are an extended technique in instrumental music in which a monophonic instrument (one which generally produces only one note at a time) is made to produce several notes at once. ... Tonguing is when a musician playing a wind instrument uses their tongue on the reed or mouthpiece to enunciate different notes. ... Flutter tonguing is a wind instrument tonguing technique in which performers flutter their tongue to make a characteristic FrrrrFrrrrr sound. ... Circular breathing is a special technique utilized primarily by players of the didgeridoo (and some other wind instruments) in order to continuously blow air out of the mouth. ... Circular breathing is a special technique utilized by players of some wind instruments used to produce a continuous tone without break, accomplished by the use of the cheeks as a reservoir of air while breathing through the nose rather than the mouth. ... Double buzz refers to a multiphonic effect on the trumpet or other brass instruments. ... A mute is a device which alters the timbre and/or reduces the volume of a musical instrument. ...

Other instruments

• keyboard technique involving the fist, flat of hand, arm, or external device to create tone clusters
• unusual harmonics, including multiphonics
• glissandi, tuner glissando
• rudimental or "dynamic" double bass on the drum set, using hand rudiments such as double stroke rolls and flam taps and playing them with the feet
• custom-built percussion mallets, occasionally made for Vibraphone or Tubular Bells (and other pitched-percussion in increasingly rare circumstances) which feature more than one mallet-head, and so are capable of producing multiple pitches and difficult chords (though usually only the chords they were designed to play). These mallets are seldom used, and percussionists sometimes make them themselves when they are needed. When implemented, they are usually only used once or twice in an entire work, and are alternated with conventional mallets; usually they are used only when playing a different instrument in each hand.

A tone cluster, in music and in Western tuning, is a chord or simultaneity comprised of consecutive tones separated chromatically. ... In acoustics and telecommunication, the harmonic of a wave is a component frequency of the signal that is an integer multiple of the fundamental frequency. ... Multiphonics are an extended technique in instrumental music in which a monophonic instrument (one which generally produces only one note at a time) is made to produce several notes at once. ... Glissando (plural: glissandi) is a musical term that refers to either a continuous sliding from one pitch to another (a true glissando), or an incidental scale played while moving from one melodic note to another (an effective glissando). ... The double-stroke roll is a rudiment used by drummers and percussionists in a variety of music styles. ... A flam is one of the twenty-six drum rudiments used in drumming music theory. ... Percussion instruments are played by being struck, shaken, rubbed or scraped. ... Look up Mallet in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... A typical Ludwig-Musser vibraphone. ... Tubular bells (also known as chimes) are musical instruments in the percussion family. ...

Notable performers and composers who use extended techniques

• composer Henry Cowell
• composer George Crumb
• composer John Cage
• composer Sofia Gubaidulina
• composer Helmut Lachenmann
• composer Brian Transeau
• composer Salvatore Sciarrino
• vocalist Joan La Barbara
• vocalist Yvette Marie
• vocalist Shelley Hirsch
• vocalist Diamanda Galás
• vocalist Sainkho Namtchylak
• vocalist Demetrio Stratos
• vocalist and composer Meredith Monk
• vocalist and composer Maja Ratkje
• vocalist/drummer Brian Chippendale
• composer Krzysztof Penderecki
• 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
• violinist, violist and improviser Ernesto Rodrigues, curved bow
• flautist Ian Anderson
• composer Robert Erickson
• trombonist John Kenny
• trombonist Stuart Dempster
• bassist Bertram Turetzky
• composer Ben Gaunt
• composer/guitarist Glenn Branca
• composer/guitarist Rhys Chatham
• vocalist Tanya Tagaq Gillis
• rock guitarist Jeff Beck
• rock guitarist Jimmy Page
• rock guitarist Tom Morello
• rock guitarist Jimi Hendrix
• rock guitarists Syd Barrett and David Gilmour of Pink Floyd
• rock guitarist Eddie Van Halen
• rock guitarist Thurston Moore
• rock guitarist Lee Ranaldo
• rock guitarist Agata of Melt Banana
• rock guitarist/drummer Aaron Hemphill of the Liars
• rock guitarist/builder Yuri Landman of Avec-A
• rock guitarist Terry of The Ex
• rock guitarist Adam Jones
• rock guitarist Aaron Colbourne of 83 Floating Cubes
• rock guitarist/bassist/drummer Stephen Bernhard of Point 19
• noise rock band Neptune with their custom-made instruments
• builder Bradford Reed on his pencilina
• guitarist Steve Vai
• guitarist Derek Bailey
• guitarist Fred Frith
• classical guitarist Štěpán Rak
• guitarist Enver İzmaylov
• guitarist Kaki King
• guitarist and pianist Matthew Bellamy (Muse)
• jazz saxophonist Rahsaan Roland Kirk
• jazz saxophonist Peter Brötzmann
• jazz saxophonist Mats Gustafsson
• bassist Michael Manring
• drummer Virgil Donati
• percussionist Burkhard Beins using drums mostly as resonators for objects

Henry Cowell (March 11, 1897 - December 10, 1965) was an American composer, musical theorist, pianist, teacher, publisher, and impresario. ... George Crumb (born October 24, 1929) is an American composer of modern and avant garde music. ... For Mortal Kombat character, see Johnny Cage. ... Sofia Gubaidulina in Sortavala 1981 Sofia Asgatovna Gubaidulina, (Russian София Асгатовна Губайдулина) (born October 24, 1931) is a Russian-Tatar composer of deeply religious music. ... Helmut (Friedrich) Lachenmann (born November 27, 1935) is an important German composer. ... Brian Wayne Transeau (born October 4, 1971 in Rockville, Maryland) is a trance musician, better known by his stage name, BT. He has been called the Father of Trance for his pioneering in the trance genre [1],[2] and Prince of Dance Music for his multi-instrumentalist skills [3], and... Salvatore Sciarrino, born April 4, 1947, in Palermo. ... Joan La Barbara (born June 8, 1947 in Philadelphia, PA) is a vocalist and composer associated with contemporary music. ... Shelley Hirsch (born 1952 in Brooklyn, New York) is a singer, performer, and composer. ... Diamanda Galás, pictured in the early 2000s. ... Sainkho Namtchylak is a singer originally from Tuva, a small autonomous Russian republic just north of Mongolia. ... Meredith Monk (born November 20, 1942, in Lima, Peru[1]) is an American composer, performer, director, vocalist, film-maker, and choreographer. ... Maja Solveig Kjelstrup Ratkje is a Norwegian vocalist and composer. ... Brian Chippendale is a musician based out of Providence, Rhode Island. ... Krzysztof Penderecki. ... Multireedist is a term sometimes used to describe a musician who is a capable performer on more than one reed instrument. ... Joseph Celli is a U.S. musician and composer specializing in contemporary and improvised music for oboe and english horn. ... David Eugene Tudor (January 20, 1926 - August 13, 1996) was a pianist and composer of experimental music. ... A prepared piano is a piano that has had its sound altered by placing objects (preparations) between or on the strings or on the hammers or dampers. ... Composer-improviser-cellist Frances-Marie Uitti is renowned the world over for her interpretations of contemporary music and is famous for her extended technique using two bows simultaneously in one hand as well as her improvisational skills. ... Ernesto Rodrigues Ernesto Rodrigues (born in Lisbon, August 29, 1959) is a Portuguese composer, violinist, violist and electronic musician. ... This article is about the lead singer of Jethro Tull. ... Robert Erickson (March 7, 1917 in Marquette, Michigan–April 24, 1997 in San Diego, California) was a composer. ... Born in 1957 in Birmingham, John Kenny is a multi-faceted performer. ... Stuart Dempster (born 1936 in Berkeley, California) is a trombonist, didjeridu player, improvisor, composer, author of The Modern Trombone: A Definition of Its Idioms (1979), and on the faculty of the University of Washington. ... Bertram Turetzky is a contemporary double bass soloist, teacher and author of The Contemporary Contrabass, a book that looks at a number of new and interesting ways of playing the double bass. ... Glenn Branca (born October 6, 1948 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania) is an avant-garde composer and guitarist. ... Rhys Chatham (b. ... Tanya Tagaq Gillis (BFA) (sometimes credited as Tagaq) is an Inuit throat singer from Cambridge Bay (Ikaluktuutiak), Nunavut, Canada, on the south coast of Victoria Island. ... Geoffrey Arnold (Jeff) Beck (born June 24, 1944 to Arnold and Ethel Beck in Wallington, Greater London, England) is an English guitar virtuoso and songwriter. ... James Patrick Jimmy Page, OBE (born 9 January 1944) is an English guitarist, composer and record producer. ... Tom Morello (born May 30, 1964, as Thomas Baptist Morello) is a Grammy Award-winning American guitarist who played in Audioslave and Rage Against the Machine. ... This article contains a trivia section. ... Roger Keith Syd Barrett (born 6 January 1946 in Cambridge – died 7 July 2006 in Cambridge) was an English singer, songwriter, guitarist, and artist. ... David Jon Gilmour CBE (born March 6, 1946 in Cambridge, Cambridgeshire) is an English guitarist, singer, and songwriter best known as a member of the band Pink Floyd. ... Pink Floyd are an English rock band that earned recognition for their psychedelic rock music, and, as they evolved, for their avant-garde progressive rock music. ... Edward Van Halen (born Edward Lodewijk van Halen on January 26, 1955[1] in Nijmegen, Netherlands), is a guitarist, keyboardist, songwriter and producer most famous for being leader and a co-founder of the hard rock band, Van Halen. ... Thurston Joseph Moore (born July 25, 1958 in Coral Gables, Florida) is an American musician best known as a singer and guitarist for Sonic Youth. ... Lee Ranaldo at Ilosaarirock 2003 Lee Ranaldo (b. ... Agata can refer to: A female name, cognate of Agatha. ... Melt-Banana is a Japanese noise rock band that was founded in 1992 by friends attending Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. ... Liars can refer to: The album by Todd Rundgren The indie rock band. ... Yuri Landman (born 1-2-1973) is a dutch multi disciplined artist most well known for his work as an experimental luthier, but also active as a comic artist, illustrator, musician, singer, graphic designer and furniture designer. ... The Ex is an anarchist punk rock band from the Netherlands. ... Adam Thomas Jones (born January 15, 1965 in Park Ridge, Illinois) is a Grammy Award-winning musician, guitarist and visual artist, best known for his work with the band Tool. ... Aaron Colbourne, born October 8th, 1984, is the guitarist and founding member of Toronto noise-rock band 83 Floating Cubes. ... Neptune Neptune is a noise music band from Boston that built all their custom made guitars and basses out of heaps of scrap metal. ... A homemade musical instrument invented by Bradford Reed ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Derek Bailey pictured at the Vortex Club, Stoke Newington, 1991. ... Fred Frith performing at the Moers Jazz Festival, 1 June 1998. ... Štěpán Rak (born 1945) is a Czech classical guitarist and composer. ... Enver İzmaylov (b. ... Kaki King is an American guitarist from Marietta, Georgia. ... Matthew James Bellamy (born June 9, 1978 in Cambridge, England) is the lead singer, guitarist and pianist of rock group Muse, known for his falsetto voice and guitar playing ability. ... In Greek mythology, the Muses (Greek , Mousai: perhaps from the Proto-Indo-European root *men- think[1]) are a number of goddesses or spirits who embody the arts and inspire the creation process with their graces through remembered and improvised song and stage, writing, traditional music and dance. ... Rahsaan Roland Kirk (August 7, 1936 - December 5, 1977) was a blind American jazz multi-instrumentalist. ... Peter Brötzmann (born March 6, 1941) is a German free jazz saxophonist. ... Mats Gustafsson during a concert in Kongsberg, Norway, september 2005 Mats Gustafsson (born 1964 in Umeå) is a Swedish saxophone player and a stalwart on the Scandinavian free jazz scene. ... Michael Manring (born June 1960 in Washington, D.C.) is an electric bassist from the San Francisco Bay Area (Northern California). ... Virgil Donati is a drummer currently playing in the band Planet X, though he has many side projects. ... Burkhard Beins is a German percussionist mostly working in the fields of free improvisation and experimental music. ...

See also

• List of pieces which use extended techniques

Luciano Berio Sequenzas I-XIV John Cage prepared piano pieces (1938) One8 (1991), for curved bow Henry Cowell Tides of Manaunaun (1915), large tone-clusters The Banshee, Aeolian Harp, and Sinister Resonance, played inside the piano George Crumb Black Angels, extended string techniques, including bowing with glass rods Makrokosmos (1972...

References

• Stuart Dempster's The Modern Trombone: A Definition of Its Idioms, ISBN 0-520-03252-7.
• Patricia and Allen Strange's The Contemporary Violin, ISBN 0-520-22409-4, and other books in The New Instrumentation series.
• Bertram Turetzky's The Contemporary Contrabass ISBN 0-520-06381-3.
• Michael Edward Edgerton's The 21st Century Voice, ISBN 0-8108-5354-X, and other books in The New Instrumentation series. Scarecrow Press, 2005.

Stuart Dempster (born 1936 in Berkeley, California) is a trombonist, didjeridu player, improvisor, composer, author of The Modern Trombone: A Definition of Its Idioms (1979), and on the faculty of the University of Washington. ... The trombone is a musical instrument in the brass family. ... The violin is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. ... Bertram Turetzky is a contemporary double bass soloist, teacher and author of The Contemporary Contrabass, a book that looks at a number of new and interesting ways of playing the double bass. ... The term contrabass (derived from the Italian contrabbasso) refers to very low musical instruments; generally those pitched one octave below instruments of the bass register. ...

External links

• 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.
• oddmusic A website dedicated to unique, odd, ethnic, experimental and unusual musical instruments and resources.