| This research document examines the variety of new timbres, techniques, and textures utilized by twentieth-century composers in writing for string instruments. By the early twentieth century composers grew bold in their search for new sounds on traditional instruments. In searching for a modern voice, or their own voices, composers experimented with and expanded the wide range of colors and vocabulary of sound effects possible with modern string instruments. The emphasis of research in this document is to describe and compare the expanded colors and vocabulary of sounds and techniques found in selected twentieth-century literature, especially that for cello, and to make practitioner's suggestions for successful performance of those expanded techniques. The material is organized into four categories: (a) pizzicato, (b) bowing, (c) harmonics, and (d) miscellaneous percussive and added vocal techniques.; Expanded techniques for pizzicato were influenced by the inventions of left-hand pizzicato and snap pizzicato by nineteenth-century performers and composers. They include glissando and tremolo pizzicato, slurred pizzicato, vibrato pizzicato, and pizzicato at the nut of the instrument, and are organized into either the resulting new color or texture produced. Experimental bowings are also explored, including drawing the bow on the bridge, below the bridge, on the tailpiece, on the side of the bridge, underneath the strings, and on various other parts of the instrument. The use of harmonics in combination with other techniques to discover a variety of special effects is discussed, and numerous miscellaneous and percussive effects are presented that turn the string instrument temporarily into a vocal, non-western, or percussion-sounding instrument.; Musical examples are drawn from, but not limited to, compositions by Stravinsky, Ligeti, Poulenc, Kodaly, Crumb, Brown, Xenakis, Berio, Penderecki, Hrisanide, Webern, Shostakovich, Davidovsky, Kagel, Erb, Cervetti, Chaynes, and Miroglio. |
