NEW METHODS OF PITCH FORMATION ON STRINGED INSTRUMENTS USING OVERTONE TECHNIQUES

Abstract

The article highlights the use of overtone techniques of playing stringed instruments, which have recently become an integral part of the compositional technique in the music of the second half of the 20’th – beginning of the 21’st century. Sound production techniques, based on the acoustic phenomenon of the natural scale with its certain physical properties, are used by modern composers as an artistic technique on the one hand, and as a lado-harmonic form of organization of musical material on the other. On the basis of the acoustic regularities of the overtone series, an attempt has been made to explain some features of sonoristic harmony and different approaches in the formation of sound textures in a composition, the main factor in the development and structure of which is the timbre. The pitch of the sonorous complex essentially becomes effective, i.e., a direct consequence of certain manipulations with the sound production of overtones on the instrument. In this sense, the new harmony formed as a result of these manipulations can be considered “overtone harmony”. This provides grounds for developing new approaches to the understanding and analysis of modern sonoristic scores. In other words, these overtone techniques are some alternative to spectral music. Advanced instrumental techniques were widely used in the work of such composers as S. Charrino, R. Saunders, T. Hosokawa, J. Crum, B. Furrer, G. Lagenman, and others. In their work, new instrumental methods have a significant impact on the formation of complex textures, which in turn constitute both the pitch and timbre component of sound complexes, and are techniques of textural development. In this case, in the context of the analysis of the sonorous vertical in relation to the specified “extended techniques”, it is justified to use the term “timber texture”.