THE 'REINVENTING GUITAR' PROJECT
INTERPRETATIONS ROOTED IN THE MOTHER SONORITIES
“Speak a new language, so that the world will be a new world!”
J. Rumi
In 2009 Smaro Gregoriadou introduced the title “Reinventing guitar” as a summation of her artistic and pedagogical activities in the field of classical guitar. The term and process reveal novel guitar sonorities for traditional repertoire and transcriptions, the realization of which is based on Kertsopoulos Aesthetics system and methodology. Watch in the video what Smaro has to say!
Reinventing guitar: a dynamic process of re-creation
In 2009 I introduced the term Reinventing Guitar to describe my overall interpretive and pedagogical approach, which is to project on an international scale the need for a redefinition of the classical guitar’s sound and technique. This is crucial especially for early music interpretation, given the enormous distance that modern classical guitar retains from performance practices and sound idioms of the past; but it is equally important for contemporary guitar music that needs new timbres to express itself. My purpose is therefore to provide historically informed, well substantiated, compatible Renaissance and Baroque interpretations that at the same time can be fresh, alive and convincing; also a new reading for new repertoire, suitable for modern audiences and venues. Hence my use of a plethora of exceptional instruments that although maintain the overall form and sound characteristics of the standard guitar, are being further upgraded with various constructional features and acoustic applications, newly developed strings and alternative tuning configurations of Kertsopoulos Aesthetics that enrich sound, technique, interpretation and style.
“Reinventing guitar” is not merely an attempt for historically informed interpretations. It expresses the dynamic process of assimilation by which a contemporary artist re-creates in his own terms the masterpieces of the past. Thus the objective is not as simplistic as making a modern guitar sound like a harpsichord or a baroque lute. The aim is to discover some vital but long-neglected aspects of guitar’s tradition and historical milieu, and to incorporate them into our current interpretive logic and mentality.
The “Reinventing guitar” process involves two tasks. Firstly, to study retrospectively the history, repertory and traditions of the classical guitar, placing facts in their proper background. And once this data is properly assembled and digested, to activate all necessary artistic forces so as to provide realistic, coherent, and yet fresh period interpretations of the classical guitar repertoire, at the same time “alive” and compatible. Bach spoke often of the performance of a piece as requiring gravitas. The effort to reveal, and – if possible – transmit the energy of this inherent spirituality through interpretations rooted in the mother sonorities is the essence of my approach.
Authenticity or retrospective thought
We cannot sound entirely authentic today, but we can certainly endeavor to follow retrospectively the stages of the guitar’s evolution, allowing all the historical forms and idiomatic sounds of this great instrument to appear before us. And since we realize that this portrait is obscured by countless layers of “over-painting,” like a Minoan fresco, these layers will have to be peeled away, one by one, so that guitar’s true nature and genuine beauty, now indistinct and even distorted, will come forth naturally.
Careful retrospective thought is important because we often tend to see the past exclusively in the light of later development. For example, conditioned as we are to the neutrality of our twelve-tone equal tempered scale, we often tend to consider most historical tunings, like the renaissance mean-tone or the numerous unequal temperaments of the baroque era, as “mistuned,” “awkward,” or even “non functional”! How would we perceive the subtle microtonal shades of any 17th century instrument, if we were to hear it today?
Another example concerns string materials. Today the characteristic mellow timbre of nylon is generally appreciated as the optimum quality of the classical guitar’s sound. Historical string materials like gut or wire are considered harsh, too “immediate,” or excessively brilliant; in other words, irrelevant to the instrument’s “culture of sonority” as we perceive it today. How objective is this viewpoint? The guitar’s firm association, especially with gut, remained a long-standing tradition that was to end only on the eve of the Second World War, when Andrès Segovia (1894-1987) tried to respond to the limited availability and high cost of gut with the introduction of the recently invented nylon. Although the dim tone quality of nylon was anything but popular at that time, Segovia managed to establish this material as the new standard. But the sound of the instrument was modified considerably thereafter, and this rather sudden transition gradually constrained the modern player’s aesthetic criteria and taste to a significant degree, despite the indisputable advantages of nylon.
This change in aesthetics was neither fortuitous nor exclusive to the guitar. While in the past musicians used to make their own strings, this age-old custom had already become impractical by the beginning of the 20th century, as musicians started to rely increasingly on the big string companies. “The guitarist must be master of the strings,” wrote Dionisio Aguado (1784-1849) in his Method, meaning a painstaking control over all the working parameters of the strings – from the collection and draining of the organic materials to the choice of tensions, diameters, weight, winding methods and timbres. As it is now obviously impossible for this obsolete tradition to be restored, Aguado’s statement sounds outdated. But there are many misunderstandings, prejudices and absolutes that classical guitar players could certainly guard against. For example, many guitarists today erroneously believe that the no-nail technique of Fernando Sor (1778-1839) produced a mellow, nylon-like sound that approaches the sul tasto effect of our contemporary guitar; while in reality Sor’s guitar had gut strings that yielded a brilliant and penetrating timbre, so nails were unnecessary, at least to him.
Reinventing guitar as a synthetic concept
The “Reinventing guitar” process and methodology presents my synthetic concept of classical guitar repertory, arousing a critical, reflective inquiry into certain performance attitudes that up to now have been considered non-negotiable in the realm of classical guitar. So, for example, my baroque interpretations cannot fully demonstrate what this music actually was, but they can hopefully help to show what it could have been! Hence the several new ways to interpret baroque music on the guitar, and – in addition – the different angles from which I approach the same composer or genre, based on the scientific and technological achievements of Kertsopoulos Aesthetics, a platform of original inventions in guitar and string construction.
The “Reinventing guitar” approach obviously does not impose solutions. Instead, it attempts to present a healthy and creative symbiosis, a modus vivendi faithful to the requirements of scholarship, while remaining responsive to the true needs of artistic performance. At the same time, it cultivates an ethos centered on what seems to be the most imperative necessity in the world of classical guitar today: the modern guitarist’s determination to step outside the established style whenever this may contribute to the evolution of the instrument — or communicate more eloquently the intrinsic healing power of music, both of which are, to my mind, an open, interdependent and challenging process!
Smaro Gregoriadou