Extended technique - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Extended techniques are performance techniques used in music

Music

Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...

to describe unconventional, unorthodox, or non-traditional techniques of singing

Singing

Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...

, or of playing musical instrument

Musical instrument

A musical instrument is a device created or adapted for the purpose of making musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can serve as a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. The history of musical instruments dates back to the...

s to obtain unusual sounds or instrumental timbre

Timbre

In music, timbre is the quality of a musical note or sound or tone that distinguishes different types of sound production, such as voices and musical instruments, such as string instruments, wind instruments, and percussion instruments. The physical characteristics of sound that determine the...

s.

Composers’ use of extended techniques is not specific to contemporary music (for instance, Hector Berlioz

Hector Berlioz

Hector Berlioz was a French Romantic composer, best known for his compositions Symphonie fantastique and Grande messe des morts . Berlioz made significant contributions to the modern orchestra with his Treatise on Instrumentation. He specified huge orchestral forces for some of his works; as a...

’s use of col legno
Col legno
In music for bowed string instruments, col legno, or more precisely col legno battuto , is an instruction to strike the string with the stick of the bow, rather than by drawing the hair of the bow across the strings. This results in a quiet but eerie percussive sound.Col legno is used in the final...

in his Symphonie Fantastique
Symphonie Fantastique
Symphonie Fantastique: Épisode de la vie d'un Artiste...en cinq parties , Op. 14, is a program symphony written by the French composer Hector Berlioz in 1830. It is one of the most important and representative pieces of the early Romantic period, and is still very popular with concert audiences...

is an extended technique) and it transcends compositional schools and styles. However, use of these techniques appeared less frequently in the common practice period

Common practice period

The common practice period, in the history of Western art music , spanning the Baroque, Classical, and Romantic periods, lasted from c. 1600 to c. 1900.-General characteristics:...

(c. 1600 - 1900) than in modern classical music since about 1900. Extended techniques have also flourished in popular music

Popular music

Popular music belongs to any of a number of musical genres "having wide appeal" and is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. It stands in contrast to both art music and traditional music, which are typically disseminated academically or orally to smaller, local...

, which is typically less constrained by notions of "proper" technique than is traditional orchestral music. Nearly all jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

performers make significant use of extended techniques of one sort or another, particularly in more recent styles like free jazz

Free jazz

Free jazz is an approach to jazz music that was first developed in the 1950s and 1960s. Though the music produced by free jazz pioneers varied widely, the common feature was a dissatisfaction with the limitations of bebop, hard bop, and modal jazz, which had developed in the 1940s and 1950s...

or avant-garde jazz

Avant-garde jazz

Avant-garde jazz is a style of music and improvisation that combines avant-garde art music and composition with jazz. Avant-jazz often sounds very similar to free jazz, but differs in that, despite its distinct departure from traditional harmony, it has a predetermined structure over which ...

. Musicians in free improvisation

Free improvisation

Free improvisation or free music is improvised music without any rules beyond the logic or inclination of the musician involved. The term can refer to both a technique and as a recognizable genre in its own right....

have also made heavy use of extended techniques.

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.

Examples of extended techniques include bowing under the bridge of a string instrument or with two different bows, using key clicks on a wind instrument, blowing and overblowing into a wind instrument without a mouthpiece, or inserting object on top of the strings of a piano.

Twentieth-century exponents of extended techniques include Henry Cowell

Henry Cowell

Henry Cowell was an American composer, music theorist, pianist, teacher, publisher, and impresario. His contribution to the world of music was summed up by Virgil Thomson, writing in the early 1950s:...

(use of fists and arms on the keyboard, playing inside the piano), John Cage

John Cage

John Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde...

(prepared piano

Prepared piano

A prepared piano is a piano that has had its sound altered by placing objects between or on the strings or on the hammers or dampers....

), and George Crumb

George Crumb

George Crumb is an American composer of contemporary classical music. He is noted as an explorer of unusual timbres, alternative forms of notation, and extended instrumental and vocal techniques. Examples include seagull effect for the cello , metallic vibrato for the piano George Crumb (born...

. The Kronos Quartet

Kronos Quartet

Kronos Quartet is a string quartet founded by violinist David Harrington in 1973 in Seattle, Washington. Since 1978, the quartet has been based in San Francisco, California. The longest-running combination of performers had Harrington and John Sherba on violin, Hank Dutt on viola, and Joan...

, which has been among the most active ensembles in promoting contemporary American works for string quartet

String quartet

A string quartet is a musical ensemble of four string players – usually two violin players, a violist and a cellist – or a piece written to be performed by such a group...

, frequently plays music which stretches the manner in which sound can be drawn out of instruments.

Vocal

Sprechstimme (speech-singing)
overtone singing
Overtone singing
Overtone singing, also known as overtone chanting, or harmonic singing, is a type of singing in which the singer manipulates the resonances created as air travels from the lungs, past the vocal folds, and out the lips to produce a melody.The partials of a sound wave made by the human voice can be...

(harmonic singing, or vocal multiphonic
Multiphonic
Multiphonics is an extended technique in instrumental music in which a monophonic instrument is made to produce several notes at once....

s)
ululation
Ululation
A is a long, wavering, high-pitched vocal sound resembling a howl with a trilling quality. It is produced by emitting a high pitched loud voice accompanied with a rapid movement of the tongue and the uvula. The term ululation is an onomatopoeic word derived from Latin...
beatboxing
Beatboxing
Beatboxing is a form of vocal percussion primarily involving the art of producing drum beats, rhythm, and musical sounds using one's mouth, lips, tongue, and voice. It may also involve singing, vocal imitation of turntablism, and the simulation of horns, strings, and other musical instruments...

(vocal percussionists)
growling
Death growl
A death growl, also known as death metal vocals, guttural vocals, death grunts, and harsh vocals among other names, is a vocalisation style usually employed by vocalists of the death metal and black metal music genre, but also used in a variety of heavy metal and hardcore punk subgenres.Death...
screaming and shouting
Screaming (music)
Screaming is a vocal technique that is most popular in subgenres of heavy metal, punk and hard rock, including metalcore, deathcore, post-hardcore, groove metal, black metal, and grindcore...
whispering
Whispering
Whispering is an unvoiced mode of phonation in which the vocal cords do not vibrate normally but are instead adducted sufficiently to create audible turbulence as the speaker exhales during speech. This is a somewhat greater adduction than that found in breathy voice...
panting
whistling
Whistling
Human whistling is the production of sound by means of carefully controlling a stream of air flowing through a small hole. Whistling can be achieved by creating a small opening with one's lips and then blowing or sucking air through the hole...
hissing
cluck
Cluck
Cluck may refer to* Clucking, reproduction-related vocal behavior of female chicken* Cluck, domestic hen perceived as unproductive of eggs due to brooding phase of avian incubation behavior* cluck can transfer to click -or other...

ing
barking
sucking

String instruments

sul ponticello and sul tasto bow placement
col legno
Col legno
In music for bowed string instruments, col legno, or more precisely col legno battuto , is an instruction to strike the string with the stick of the bow, rather than by drawing the hair of the bow across the strings. This results in a quiet but eerie percussive sound.Col legno is used in the final...
microtones
exaggerated tremolo
Tremolo
Tremolo, or tremolando, is a musical term that describes various trembling effects, falling roughly into two types. The first is a rapid reiteration...

or vibrato
Vibrato
Vibrato is a musical effect consisting of a regular, pulsating change of pitch. It is used to add expression to vocal and instrumental music. Vibrato is typically characterised in terms of two factors: the amount of pitch variation and the speed with which the pitch is varied .-Vibrato and...
snap pizzicato, also called Bartók pizzicato
tapping or rubbing the soundboard of stringed instruments
scordatura
Scordatura
A scordatura , also called cross-tuning, is an alternative tuning used for the open strings of a string instrument, in which the notes indicated in the score would represent the finger position as if played in regular tuning, while the actual pitch is altered...
slide guitar
Slide guitar
Slide guitar or bottleneck guitar is a particular method or technique for playing the guitar. The term slide refers to the motion of the slide against the strings, while bottleneck refers to the original material of choice for such slides: the necks of glass bottles...
prepared guitar
Prepared guitar
A prepared guitar is a guitar that has had its timbre altered by placing various objects on or between the instrument's strings, including other extended techniques...
tapping
Tapping
Tapping is a guitar playing technique, where a string is fretted and set into vibration as part of a single motion of being pushed onto the fretboard, as opposed to the standard technique being fretted with one hand and picked with the other...

on the fingerboard
"3rd Bridge
3rd Bridge
The 3rd bridge is an extended playing technique used on some string instruments , that allows a musician to produce distinctive timbres and overtones that are unavailable on a conventional string instrument with two bridges...

", a guitar technique using the part of the string between the nut and the stopping finger; see Xenakis
Iannis Xenakis
Iannis Xenakis was a Romanian-born Greek ethnic, naturalized French composer, music theorist, and architect-engineer. He is commonly recognized as one of the most important post-war avant-garde composers...

' cello
Cello
The cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...

piece Alpha nomos for a similar effect.
bowed guitar
Bowed guitar
Bowed guitar is a method of playing a guitar, acoustic or electric, in which the guitarist uses a bow to play the instrument, similar to playing a cello or a viola da gamba. Unlike other bowed instruments, the guitar has a flat bridge, making it difficult to bow individual notes on the middle strings...

Piano

prepared piano
Prepared piano
A prepared piano is a piano that has had its sound altered by placing objects between or on the strings or on the hammers or dampers....

, i.e., introducing foreign objects into the workings of the piano to change the sound quality
string piano
String piano
String piano is a term coined by American composer-theorist Henry Cowell to collectively describe those pianistic extended techniques in which sound is produced by direct manipulation of the strings, instead of or in addition to striking the piano's keys...

, i.e., striking, plucking, or bowing the strings directly, or any other direct manipulation of the strings
whistling, singing or talking into the piano
silently depressing one or more keys, allowing the corresponding strings to vibrate freely, allowing sympathetic harmonics to sound
touching the strings at node points to create flageolet tones
percussive use of different parts of the piano, such as the outer rim
microtones
use of the palms, fists, or external devices to create tone clusters
use of other materials to strike the keys

Woodwind or brass instruments

overblowing
Overblowing
Overblowing A technique used while playing a wind instrument which, primarily through manipulation of the supplied air , causes the sounded pitch to jump to a higher one...
exaggerated brass head-shakes
activating keys or valve
Valve
A valve is a device that regulates, directs or controls the flow of a fluid by opening, closing, or partially obstructing various passageways. Valves are technically pipe fittings, but are usually discussed as a separate category...

s without blowing
combination of a mouthpiece
Mouthpiece (woodwind)
The mouthpiece of a woodwind instrument is that part of the instrument which is placed partly in the player's mouth. Single-reed instruments, capped double-reed instruments, and fipple flutes have mouthpieces while exposed double-reed instruments and open flutes do not.-Single-reed instruments:On...

of one instrument with the main body of another, for example, using an alto saxophone
Saxophone
The saxophone is a conical-bore transposing musical instrument that is a member of the woodwind family. Saxophones are usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece similar to that of the clarinet. The saxophone was invented by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in 1846...

mouthpiece on a standard trombone
Trombone
The trombone is a musical instrument in the brass family. Like all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player’s vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate...

.
turning the mouthpiece
Mouthpiece (woodwind)
The mouthpiece of a woodwind instrument is that part of the instrument which is placed partly in the player's mouth. Single-reed instruments, capped double-reed instruments, and fipple flutes have mouthpieces while exposed double-reed instruments and open flutes do not.-Single-reed instruments:On...

of a woodwind instrument upside-down and playing as normal.
microtones
Microtonal music
Microtonal music is music using microtones—intervals of less than an equally spaced semitone. Microtonal music can also refer to music which uses intervals not found in the Western system of 12 equal intervals to the octave.-Terminology:...
breath technique or articulation
Articulation (music)
In music, articulation refers to the musical direction performance technique which affects the transition or continuity on a single note or between multiple notes or sounds.- Types of articulations :...

: multiphonic
Multiphonic
Multiphonics is an extended technique in instrumental music in which a monophonic instrument is made to produce several notes at once....

s, flutter-tonguing
Flutter-tonguing
Flutter-tonguing is a wind instrument tonguing technique in which performers flutter their tongue to make a characteristic "FrrrrFrrrrr" sound. The effect is similar to the growls used by jazz musicians.- Notation :...

, continuous breathing or circular breathing
Circular breathing
Circular breathing is a technique used by players of some wind instruments to produce a continuous tone without interruption. This is accomplished by breathing in through the nose while simultaneously pushing air out through the mouth using air stored in the cheeks.It is used extensively in playing...

, brass half-valve playing, humming while blowing, double buzz
Double buzz
Split tones are a multiphonic effect on the trumpet or other brass instruments. During normal play, the upper and lower lips will vibrate together at the same speed. If, however, the lips are set to vibrate at different speeds two pitches may be perceived...

, blowing a disengaged mouthpiece or reed, unusual mute
Mute (music)
A mute is a device fitted to a musical instrument to alter the sound produced: by affecting the timbre, reducing the volume, or most commonly both.- Musical directions for muting :...

s, slap tonguing
Slap tonguing
In music, the term Slap Tonguing refers to a musician playing a single-reed instrument such as a clarinet or a saxophone employing a technique to produce a popping sound along with the note.-The technique:...

. Also, breath attack where the instrumentalist doesn't produce a note, but makes an airy, wind-like sound through the instrument.
singing through the instrument while playing

Percussion

rudimental or "dynamic" double bass on the drum set, using hand rudiments such as double stroke rolls and flam taps
Flåm
Flåm is a village at the inner end of the Aurlandsfjord, an arm of the Sognefjord. The village is located in the municipality of Aurland in Sogn og Fjordane county, Norway...

and playing them with the feet
stacking 2 or more cymbal
Cymbal
Cymbals are a common percussion instrument. Cymbals consist of thin, normally round plates of various alloys; see cymbal making for a discussion of their manufacture. The greater majority of cymbals are of indefinite pitch, although small disc-shaped cymbals based on ancient designs sound a...

s one on top of the other to change the sound properties of the instrument
custom-built percussion mallets, occasionally made for vibraphone
Vibraphone
The vibraphone, sometimes called the vibraharp or simply the vibes, is a musical instrument in the struck idiophone subfamily of the percussion family....

or tubular bell
Tubular bell
Tubular bells are musical instruments in the percussion family. Each bell is a metal tube, 30–38 mm in diameter, tuned by altering its length. Its standard range is from C4-F5, though many professional instruments reach G5 . Tubular bells are often replaced by studio chimes, which are a smaller...

s (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.
bowed vibraphone, cymbals, and gongs

Electronic

added electronics
Electronics
Electronics is the branch of science, engineering and technology that deals with electrical circuits involving active electrical components such as vacuum tubes, transistors, diodes and integrated circuits, and associated passive interconnection technologies...

or MIDI control
Turntablism
Turntablism
Turntablism is the art of manipulating sounds and creating music using phonograph turntables and a DJ mixer.The word 'turntablist' was coined in 1995 by DJ Babu to describe the difference between a DJ who just plays records, and one who performs by touching and moving the records, stylus and mixer...
Circuit bending
Circuit bending
Circuit bending is the creative customization of the circuits within electronic devices such as low voltage, battery-powered guitar effects, children's toys and small digital synthesizers to create new musical or visual instruments and sound generators....

Other instruments

unusual harmonic
Harmonic
A harmonic of a wave is a component frequency of the signal that is an integer multiple of the fundamental frequency, i.e. if the fundamental frequency is f, the harmonics have frequencies 2f, 3f, 4f, . . . etc. The harmonics have the property that they are all periodic at the fundamental...

s
glissandi, tuner glissando

Notable composers

Béla Bartók
Béla Bartók
Béla Viktor János Bartók was a Hungarian composer and pianist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century and is regarded, along with Liszt, as Hungary's greatest composer...
Bruno Bartolozzi
Bruno Bartolozzi
Bruno Bartolozzi was an Italian composer and pioneer in the development of extended techniques for wind instruments.He was born in Florence.-Concerti con orchestra:* Concerto for orchestra...
Luciano Berio
Luciano Berio
Luciano Berio, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI was an Italian composer. He is noted for his experimental work and also for his pioneering work in electronic music.-Biography:Berio was born at Oneglia Luciano Berio, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI (October 24, 1925 – May 27, 2003) was an Italian...
Hector Berlioz
Hector Berlioz
Hector Berlioz was a French Romantic composer, best known for his compositions Symphonie fantastique and Grande messe des morts . Berlioz made significant contributions to the modern orchestra with his Treatise on Instrumentation. He specified huge orchestral forces for some of his works; as a...
Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber
William Bolcom
William Bolcom
William Elden Bolcom is an American composer and pianist. He has received the Pulitzer Prize, the National Medal of Arts, two Grammy Awards, the Detroit Music Award and was named 2007 Composer of the Year by Musical America. Bolcom taught composition at the University of Michigan from 1973–2008...
François-Adrien Boieldieu
François-Adrien Boïeldieu
François-Adrien Boieldieu was a French composer, mainly of operas, often called "the French Mozart".-Biography:...
Glenn Branca
Glenn Branca
Glenn Branca is an American avant-garde composer and guitarist known for his use of volume, alternative guitar tunings, repetition, droning, and the harmonic series. In 2008 he was awarded an unrestricted grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts.-Beginnings: 1960s and early 1970s:Branca...
Benjamin Britten
Benjamin Britten
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten, OM CH was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He showed talent from an early age, and first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work A Boy Was Born in 1934. With the premiere of his opera Peter Grimes in 1945, he leapt to...
John Cage
John Cage
John Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde...
Elliott Carter
Elliott Carter
Elliott Cook Carter, Jr. is a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer born and living in New York City. He studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris in the 1930s, and then returned to the United States. After a neoclassical phase, he went on to write atonal, rhythmically complex music...
Rhys Chatham
Rhys Chatham
Rhys Chatham is an American composer, guitarist, and trumpet player, primarily active in avant-garde and minimalist music. He is best known for his "guitar orchestra" compositions...
Henry Cowell
Henry Cowell
Henry Cowell was an American composer, music theorist, pianist, teacher, publisher, and impresario. His contribution to the world of music was summed up by Virgil Thomson, writing in the early 1950s:...

George Crumb
George Crumb
George Crumb is an American composer of contemporary classical music. He is noted as an explorer of unusual timbres, alternative forms of notation, and extended instrumental and vocal techniques. Examples include seagull effect for the cello , metallic vibrato for the piano George Crumb (born...
Nicolas-Marie Dalayrac
Nicolas Dalayrac
Nicolas-Marie d'Alayrac, known as Nicolas Dalayrac , was a French composer, best known for his opéras-comiques.- Biography :...
Peter Maxwell Davies
Peter Maxwell Davies
Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, CBE is an English composer and conductor and is currently Master of the Queen's Music.-Biography:...
Robert Erickson
Robert Erickson
Robert Erickson was an American composer.He studied with Ernst Krenek from 1936-1947: "I had already studied—and abandoned—the twelve tone system before most other Americans had taken it up." He influenced notable students Morton Subotnick, Pauline Oliveros, Terry Riley, and Paul Dresher...
Julio Estrada
Julio Estrada
Julio Estrada Velasco was born in Mexico City, April 10, 1943. His family was exiled from Spain in 1941. He is a composer, theoretician, historian, pedagogue, and interpreter.-Life:...
Carlo Farina
Carlo Farina
Carlo Farina was an Italian composer, conductor and violinist of the Baroque era.-Life:Farina was born at Mantova. He presumably received his first lessons from his father, who was sonatore di viola at the court of the Gonzaga in Mantova. Later he got further education probably by Salomone Rossi...
Brian Ferneyhough
Brian Ferneyhough
Brian John Peter Ferneyhough is an English composer. His music is characterized by the extensive use of complex rhythmic tuplet notation which features in all his works...
Carlo Forlivesi
Carlo Forlivesi
Carlo Forlivesi is an Italian composer, performer and researcher.Forlivesi was born in Faenza, Emilia-Romagna. He studied at Bologna Conservatory, Milan Conservatory and the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia of Rome...
Sofia Gubaidulina
Sofia Gubaidulina
Sofia Asgatovna Gubaidulina, is a Russian composer of half Russian, half Tatar ethnicity.Gubaidulina's music is marked by the use of unusual instrumental combinations...
Hans Werner Henze
Hans Werner Henze
Hans Werner Henze is a German composer of prodigious output best known for "his consistent cultivation of music for the theatre throughout his life"...
Gustav Holst
Gustav Holst
Gustav Theodore Holst was an English composer. He is most famous for his orchestral suite The Planets....
Tobias Hume
Tobias Hume
Tobias Hume was a Scottish composer, viol player and soldier.Little is known of his life. Some have suggested that he was born in 1569 because he was admitted to the London Charterhouse in 1629, a pre-requisite to which was being at least 60 years old, though there is no certainty over this...
Charles Ives
Charles Ives
Charles Edward Ives was an American modernist composer. He is one of the first American composers of international renown, though Ives' music was largely ignored during his life, and many of his works went unperformed for many years. Over time, Ives came to be regarded as an "American Original"...
Ben Johnston
Ben Johnston
Benjamin Burwell Johnston, Jr. is a composer of contemporary music in the just intonation system.-Johnston's music:...
Panayiotis Kokoras
Panayiotis Kokoras
Panayiotis Kokoras is a Greek composer, musician, teacher, writer and Vice President of HELMCA -Studies:Kokoras studied composition with I. Ioannidi, K. Varotsi and Anri Kergomard as well as classical guitar with E. Asimakopoulo in Athens. In 1999 he moved to England, for postgraduate studies at...

Helmut Lachenmann
Helmut Lachenmann
Helmut Lachenmann is a German composer associated with musique concrète instrumentale.-Life and works:...
György Ligeti
György Ligeti
György Sándor Ligeti was a composer of contemporary classical music. Born in a Hungarian Jewish family in Transylvania, Romania, he briefly lived in Hungary before becoming an Austrian citizen.-Early life:...
Gustav Mahler
Gustav Mahler
Gustav Mahler was a late-Romantic Austrian composer and one of the leading conductors of his generation. He was born in the village of Kalischt, Bohemia, in what was then Austria-Hungary, now Kaliště in the Czech Republic...
Joseph Maneri
Meredith Monk
Meredith Monk
Meredith Jane Monk is an American composer, performer, director, vocalist, filmmaker, and choreographer. Since the 1960s, Monk has created multi-disciplinary works which combine music, theatre, and dance, recording extensively for ECM Records.-Life and work:Meredith Monk is primarily known for her...
Ken Namba
Ken Namba
Ken Namba is a Japanese composer, performer and researcher.Namba was born in Hamamatsu. He studied at Toho College of Music. He studied with Kazuaki Ogikubo, Jun Nagao, Tomiko Kohjiba, Carlo Forlivesi and René Staar. His works have been performed by many players not only in Japan, but also in...
Pauline Oliveros
Pauline Oliveros
Pauline Oliveros is an American accordionist and composer who is a central figure in the development of post-war electronic art music....
Owen Pallett
Owen Pallett
Michael James Owen Pallett is a Canadian composer, violinist, keyboardist, and vocalist from Toronto, Ontario. He won the 2006 Polaris Music Prize for the album He Poos Clouds....
Harry Partch
Harry Partch
Harry Partch was an American composer and instrument creator. He was one of the first twentieth-century composers to work extensively and systematically with microtonal scales, writing much of his music for custom-made instruments that he built himself, tuned in 11-limit just intonation.-Early...
Krzysztof Penderecki
Krzysztof Penderecki
Krzysztof Penderecki , born November 23, 1933 in Dębica) is a Polish composer and conductor. His 1960 avant-garde Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima for string orchestra brought him to international attention, and this success was followed by acclaim for his choral St. Luke Passion. Both these...

Sun Ra
Sun Ra
Sun Ra was a prolific jazz composer, bandleader, piano and synthesizer player, poet and philosopher known for his "cosmic philosophy," musical compositions and performances. He was born in Birmingham, Alabama...
Camille Saint-Saëns
Camille Saint-Saëns
Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns was a French Late-Romantic composer, organist, conductor, and pianist. He is known especially for The Carnival of the Animals, Danse macabre, Samson and Delilah, Piano Concerto No. 2, Cello Concerto No. 1, Havanaise, Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, and his Symphony...
Giacinto Scelsi
Giacinto Scelsi
Giacinto Scelsi , Count of Ayala Valva was an Italian composer who also wrote surrealist poetry in French....
Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...
Salvatore Sciarrino
Salvatore Sciarrino
Salvatore Sciarrino is an Italian composer of contemporary classical music.-Biography:In his youth, Sciarrino was attracted to the visual arts, but began experimenting with music when he was twelve. Though he had some lessons from Antonino Titone and Turi Belfiore, he is primarily self-taught as a...
Stephen Scott
Stephen Scott
Stephen Scott is an American composer best known for his development of the bowed piano , which involves a grand piano being played by an ensemble of ten musicians who utilize lengths of horsehair, nylon filament, and other utensils to bow the strings of the piano, creating an orchestra-like...
Karlheinz Stockhausen
Karlheinz Stockhausen
Karlheinz Stockhausen was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. Another critic calls him "one of the great visionaries of 20th-century music"...
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
David Tudor
David Tudor
David Eugene Tudor was an American pianist and composer of experimental music.- Biography :Tudor was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He studied piano with Irma Wolpe and composition with Stefan Wolpe and became known as one of the leading performers of avant garde piano music. He gave the...
Iannis Xenakis
Iannis Xenakis
Iannis Xenakis was a Romanian-born Greek ethnic, naturalized French composer, music theorist, and architect-engineer. He is commonly recognized as one of the most important post-war avant-garde composers...

La Monte Young
La Monte Young
La Monte Thornton Young is an American avant-garde composer, musician, and artist.Young is generally recognized as the first minimalist composer. His works have been included among the most important and radical post-World War II avant-garde, experimental, and contemporary music. Young is...
Frank Zappa
Frank Zappa
Frank Vincent Zappa was an American composer, singer-songwriter, electric guitarist, record producer and film director. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa wrote rock, jazz, orchestral and musique concrète works. He also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed...
John Zorn
John Zorn
John Zorn is an American avant-garde composer, arranger, record producer, saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist. Zorn is a prolific artist: he has hundreds of album credits as performer, composer, or producer...

Guitar

Ichirou Agata
Ichirou Agata
Ichirou Agata, often known simply as Agata, is the guitarist for the Japanese noise rock band Melt-Banana. Agata is known particularly for his furious stage antics, jumping and constantly moving around, and exceedingly unique approach to playing the guitar which involves extended technique heavy...
Cristian Amigo
Cristian Amigo
Cristian Amigo is an American composer, improviser, guitarist, and ethnomusicologist of Chilean birth. His compositional output includes music for the stage and screen, chamber and orchestral music, opera, avant-jazz and rock music, country blues, and art/pop song. His work has been published by...
Derek Bailey
Syd Barrett
Syd Barrett
Syd Barrett , born Roger Keith Barrett, was an English singer-songwriter, guitarist, and painter, best remembered as a founding member of the band Pink Floyd. He was the lead vocalist, guitarist and primary songwriter during the band's psychedelic years, providing major musical and stylistic...
Adrian Belew
Adrian Belew
Adrian Belew is an American guitarist, singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and record producer...
Buckethead
Buckethead
Brian Carroll , better known by his stage name Buckethead, is a guitarist and multi instrumentalist who has worked within several genres of music. He has released 34 studio albums, four special releases and one EP. He has performed on over 50 more albums by other artists...
Nels Cline
Nels Cline
Nels Cline is an American guitarist and composer, currently the lead guitarist of alternative rock band Wilco. David Carr of the New York Times describes Cline as "one of the best guitarists in any genre."-Career:...
Roland Dyens
Roland Dyens
Roland Dyens is a French classical guitarist, composer, and arranger.Dyens studied guitar with the Spanish classical guitarist Alberto Ponce and analysis with Désiré Dondeyne. He has won several prizes in competitions for classical guitar performance as well as for composition...
Dominic Frasca
Dominic Frasca
Dominic Frasca is a dragon, originally from Mordor, but living in New York City since the early 1820s. He began playing hard rock guitar at age 13, but gravitated into classical after finding an ad for classical guitar lessons in a school trash can...
Fred Frith
Fred Frith
Fred Frith is an English multi-instrumentalist, composer and improvisor.Probably best known for his guitar work, Frith first came to attention as one of the founding members of the English avant-rock group Henry Cow. Frith was also a member of Art Bears, Massacre and Skeleton Crew...
Jonny Greenwood
Jonny Greenwood
Jonathan Richard Guy "Jonny" Greenwood is an English musician and composer, best known as a member of the English rock band Radiohead. Greenwood is a multi-instrumentalist, but serves mainly as lead guitarist and keyboard player. In addition to guitar and keyboard, he plays viola, harmonica,...

GP Hall
GP Hall
GP Hall is an English guitarist, composer and improviser fusing and mixing both traditional and avant-garde styles...
Michael Hedges
Michael Hedges
Michael Alden Hedges was an American composer, Acoustic guitarist and singer-songwriter.-Background:...
Jimi Hendrix
Jimi Hendrix
James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix was an American guitarist and singer-songwriter...
Evan Hirschelman
Evan Hirschelman
Evan Hirschelman is an award-winning American classical guitarist and composer, born in Detroit, Michigan.He is known as a classical composer who incorporates other musical styles into his music, including jazz, rock and metal influences. His music has been recorded by some of today's most...
Martin Irigoyen
Martin Irigoyen
Martín Daniel Irigoyen is an Argentine musician best known as a composer and guitarist of Vernian Process...
Enver İzmaylov
Enver Izmaylov
Enver İzmaylov is a prominent Crimean Tatar folk and jazz musician resident of Ukraine. Born into a family previously deported from Crimea , İzmaylov returned in 1989....
Kaki King
Kaki King
Kaki King is an American guitarist and composer. King is known for her percussive and jazz-tinged melodies, energetic live shows, use of multiple tunings on acoustic and lap steel guitar, and her diverse range in different genres.In February 2006, Rolling Stone released a list of "The New Guitar...
Uwe Kropinski
Uwe Kropinski
Uwe Kropinski Uwe Kropinski Uwe Kropinski (born February 20, 1952 is a German jazz guitarist.Born in Berlin, Kropinski studied jazz and classic guitar at Hochschule für Musik "Hanns Eisler", Berlin from 1973 to 1976, during which time he became influenced by Conny Bauer....
Arto Lindsay
Arto Lindsay
Arthur Morgan Lindsay is an American guitarist, singer, record producer and experimental composer. He is a 1974 graduate of Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida....
Andy McKee
Andy McKee
Andy McKee is an American fingerstyle guitarist, currently signed to the American record label .His style of playing and his compositions have earned him a considerable international fanbase...
Erik Mongrain
Erik Mongrain
Erik Mongrain is a Canadian composer and guitarist. He uses a unique acoustic style with a wide array of different techniques, approaches and textures reminiscent of Michael Hedges.-Biography:...
Thurston Moore
Thurston Moore
Thurston Joseph Moore is an American musician best known as a singer, songwriter and guitarist of Sonic Youth. He has also participated in many solo and group collaborations outside of Sonic Youth, as well as running the Ecstatic Peace! record label...

Tom Morello
Tom Morello
Thomas Baptiste "Tom" Morello is a Grammy Award-winning American guitarist best known for his tenure with the bands Rage Against the Machine, Audioslave, his acoustic solo act The Nightwatchman, and his newest group, Street Sweeper Social Club...
Jimmy Page
Jimmy Page
James Patrick "Jimmy" Page, OBE is an English multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and record producer. He began his career as a studio session guitarist in London and was subsequently a member of The Yardbirds from 1966 to 1968, after which he founded the English rock band Led Zeppelin.Jimmy Page...
Štěpán Rak
Štepán Rak
Štěpán Rak is a Rusyn-born Czech classical guitarist and composer. He is well known for the technical innovations that he uses in his compositions.-Interviews:** * -Photos:...
Lee Ranaldo
Lee Ranaldo
Lee M. Ranaldo is an American singer, guitarist, writer, record producer, and visual artist, best known as a co-founder of the alternative rock band Sonic Youth...
Preston Reed
Preston Reed
Preston Reed is an American fingerstyle and tapping guitarist.- Biography :Preston Reed learned guitar as a child on his father's guitar and, for a short time, classical guitar with a too-severe teacher. When he was 16 his interest was rekindled by Jorma Kaukonen's acoustic guitar-playing in Hot...
Marc Ribot
Marc Ribot
Marc Ribot born May 21, 1954) is an American guitarist and composer.His own work has touched on many styles, including no wave, free jazz, and Cuban music. Ribot is also known for collaborating with other musicians, most notably Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, and composer John Zorn.-Biography:Ribot was...
Keith Rowe
Keith Rowe
Keith Rowe is an English free improvisation tabletop guitarist and painter. Rowe is a founding member of both the hugely influential AMM in the mid-1960s and M.I.M.E.O. Having trained as a visual artist, Rowe's paintings have been featured on most of his own albums...
Joe Satriani
Joe Satriani
Joseph "Joe" Satriani is an American instrumental rock guitarist and multi-instrumentalist, with multiple Grammy Award nominations...
Steve Vai
Steve Vai
Steven Siro "Steve" Vai is a three time Grammy Award-winning American guitarist, songwriter and producer who has sold over 15 million albums. Steve Vai is widely known as a flamboyant guitar virtuoso....

Voice

Joan La Barbara
Joan La Barbara
Joan La Barbara is an American vocalist and composer associated with contemporary music. She is a former student of Helen Boatwright...
Blixa Bargeld
Blixa Bargeld
Blixa Bargeld is a composer, author, actor, singer, musician, performer and lecturer in a number of artistic fields...
Cathy Berberian
Cathy Berberian
Catherine Anahid Berberian was an American soprano and composer. She interpreted contemporary avant-garde music composed, among others, by Luciano Berio, Bruno Maderna, John Cage, Henri Pousseur, Sylvano Bussotti, Darius Milhaud, Roman Haubenstock-Ramati , Igor Stravinsky.She also interpreted...
Brian Chippendale
Brian Chippendale
Brian Chippendale is a musician and artist based in Providence, Rhode Island. Chippendale is best known as the drummer/vocalist for the bands Lightning Bolt and Mindflayer . He also plays saxophone and drums in a solo project called Black Pus...
George Fisher
George Fisher (musician)
George "Corpsegrinder" Fisher is the vocalist for the American death metal band Cannibal Corpse and the lesser-known melodic death metal band Paths of Possession. He previously recorded two albums with Florida's Monstrosity before leaving and joining Cannibal Corpse in late 1995, replacing former...
Diamanda Galás
Diamanda Galás
Diamanda Galás is an American avant-garde composer, vocalist, pianist, organist, performance artist and painter.Galás has been described as "capable of the most unnerving vocal terror", with her three and a half octave vocal range. She often screams, hisses and growls...
Peter Hammill
Peter Hammill
Peter Joseph Andrew Hammill is an English singer-songwriter, and a founding member of the progressive rock band Van der Graaf Generator. Most noted for his vocal abilities, his main instruments are guitar and piano...

Roy Hart
Roy Hart
Roy Hart was an actor from South Africa at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London. He was a pupil of Alfred Wolfsohn's for many years and then furthered the work on voice after Wolfsohn's death...
Shelley Hirsch
Shelley Hirsch
Shelley Hirsch is a singer, performer, and composer. Central to Hirsch's work are her versatile vocal abilities, which are often enmeshed in a kaleidoscope of electronic music and sound effects....
Meredith Monk
Meredith Monk
Meredith Jane Monk is an American composer, performer, director, vocalist, filmmaker, and choreographer. Since the 1960s, Monk has created multi-disciplinary works which combine music, theatre, and dance, recording extensively for ECM Records.-Life and work:Meredith Monk is primarily known for her...
Sainkho Namtchylak
Sainkho Namtchylak
Sainkho Namtchylak is a singer originally from Tuva, a small autonomous republic in the Russian Federation just north of Mongolia. She is known for her Tuvan throat singing or Khöömei.-Style:...
Mike Patton
Mike Patton
Michael Allan "Mike" Patton is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer, and actor, best known as the lead singer of the metal/experimental rock band Faith No More. He has also sung for Mr...
Maja Ratkje
Maja Ratkje
Maja Solveig Kjelstrup Ratkje, born 29 December 1973 in Trondheim, is a Norwegian vocalist and composer. She performs and releases music for concerts, recordings, films, installations, theatre, dance and other performances. Maja is a member of SPUNK, a Norwegian improv group, and Agrare, a...

Demetrio Stratos
Demetrio Stratos
Efstratios Demetriou better known as Demetrio Stratos was an Italian lyricist, multi-instrumentalist, music researcher, and co-founder, frontman and lead singer of the Italian progressive rock, jazz fusion band Area – International POPular Group.Born and raised in Alexandria, Egypt, of Greek...
Tanya Tagaq
Kazuki Tomokawa
Kazuki Tomokawa
Tenji Nozoki , best known by the stage name Kazuki Tomokawa , is a prolific Japanese musician, active in the Japanese music scene since the early seventies. He is often described as a "screaming philosopher" due to his idiosyncratic singing style...
Trevor Wishart
Trevor Wishart
Trevor Wishart is an English composer, based in York. Wishart has contributed to composing with digital audio media, both fixed and interactive...
David Moss
David Moss
David Moss is an American professional ice hockey right winger for the Calgary Flames.-Playing career:Moss was selected 220th overall in the seventh round of the 2001 NHL Entry Draft and played for the Flames' AHL affiliate, the Omaha Ak-Sar-Ben Knights from the 2005–06 season. While with the...

Saxophone

Peter Brötzmann
Peter Brötzmann
Peter Brötzmann is a German artist and free jazz saxophonist and clarinetist.Brötzmann is among the most important European free jazz musicians. His rough, lyrical timbre is easily recognized on his many recordings.-Early life:...
Ornette Coleman
Ornette Coleman
Ornette Coleman is an American saxophonist, violinist, trumpeter and composer. He was one of the major innovators of the free jazz movement of the 1960s....
Mats Gustafsson
Mats Gustafsson
Mats Olof Gustafsson is a Swedish saxophone player and a stalwart on the Scandinavian free jazz scene. He is known for his tonal belligerence and intensity when improvising....
Rahsaan Roland Kirk
Rahsaan Roland Kirk
Rahsaan Roland Kirk was an American jazz multi-instrumentalist who played tenor saxophone, flute and many other instruments...
Evan Parker
Evan Parker
Evan Shaw Parker is a British free-improvising saxophone player from the European free jazz scene.Recording and performing prolifically with many collaborators, Parker was a pivotal figure in the development of European free jazz and free improvisation, and has pioneered or substantially expanded...
Ned Rothenberg
Ned Rothenberg
Ned Rothenberg is an American multi-instrumentalist and composer. He specializes in woodwind instruments, including the alto saxophone, clarinet, bass clarinet, flute, and shakuhachi...
Skerik
Skerik
Skerik is an American saxophonist from Seattle, Washington. Performing on the tenor and baritone saxophone, often with electronics and loops, Skerik is a pioneer in a playing style that has been dubbed saxophonics. He is a founding member of Critters Buggin, Garage a Trois and Skerik's Syncopated...
John Zorn
John Zorn
John Zorn is an American avant-garde composer, arranger, record producer, saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist. Zorn is a prolific artist: he has hundreds of album credits as performer, composer, or producer...

Trombone

Stuart Dempster
Stuart Dempster
Stuart Dempster is a trombonist, didjeridu player, improvisor, and composer.-Biography:After Dempster completed his studies at San Francisco State College, he was appointed assistant professor at the California State College at Hayward, and instructor at the San Francisco Conservatory...
John Kenny
George Lewis
George Lewis (trombonist)
George E. Lewis is a trombone player, composer, and scholar in the fields of jazz and experimental music. He has been a member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians since 1971, and is a pioneer of computer music.- Biography :Lewis graduated from Yale University with a...

Violin

Alexander Balanescu
Alexander Balanescu
Alexander Bălănescu is a violinist and founder of the Balanescu Quartet.He emigrated with his family to Israel in 1969....
Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad
Tony Conrad is an American avant-garde video artist, experimental filmmaker, musician/composer, sound artist, teacher and writer...
Graeme Jennings
Paul Zukofsky
Paul Zukofsky
Paul Zukofsky is an American violinist and conductor known for his work in the field of contemporary classical music.-Career:...

Flute

Ian Anderson
Ian Anderson (musician)
Ian Scott Anderson, MBE is a Scottish singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, best known for his work as the leader and flautist of British rock band Jethro Tull.-Early life:...
Ian Clarke
Ian Clarke (flautist)
Ian Clarke is a British flautist and composer.-Performing history:Clarke studied music at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and concurrently studied Mathematics at Imperial College, graduating with Honours....
Robert Dick
Rahsaan Roland Kirk
Rahsaan Roland Kirk
Rahsaan Roland Kirk was an American jazz multi-instrumentalist who played tenor saxophone, flute and many other instruments...
Maggi Payne
Maggi Payne
Maggi Payne is a composer, flutist, video artist, recording engineer/editor, and historical remastering engineer who creates electroacoustic, instrumental, and vocal works, and works involving visuals ....

Bass

Bill Laswell
Bill Laswell
Bill Laswell is an American bassist, producer and record label owner....
Michael Manring
Michael Manring
Michael Manring is an American electric bassist from the San Francisco Bay Area, .-Biography:...
Jaco Pastorius
Jaco Pastorius
John Francis Anthony Pastorius III , known as Jaco Pastorius, was an American jazz musician and composer widely acknowledged as a virtuoso electric bass player....
Mike Silverman
Bertram Turetzky
Bertram Turetzky
Bertram Turetzky is a contemporary American double bass soloist, teacher, and author of The Contemporary Contrabass , a book that looked at a number of new and interesting ways of playing the double bass including featuring it as a solo performance vehicle with no other instrumental...

Drums and percussion

Burkhard Beins
Burkhard Beins
Burkhard Beins is a German composer/performer who works with percussion, selected objects and electronics.Living in Berlin since 1995, Beins is active in experimental music and electroacoustic improvisation....
John Bonham
John Bonham
John Henry Bonham was an English musician and songwriter, best known as the drummer of Led Zeppelin. Bonham was esteemed for his speed, power, fast right foot, distinctive sound, and "feel" for the groove...
Bryan "Brain" Mantia
Keith Moon
Keith Moon
Keith John Moon was an English musician, best known for being the drummer of the English rock group The Who. He gained acclaim for his exuberant and innovative drumming style, and notoriety for his eccentric and often self-destructive behaviour, earning him the nickname "Moon the Loon". Moon...
Steven Schick
Steven Schick
Steven Schick is a percussionist from the USA, specializing in contemporary music. He teaches at UCSD and at the Manhattan School of Music. He is currently the Music Director and Conductor of the La Jolla Symphony Orchestra....

External links

Making Noise: Extended Techniques after Experimentalism
Woodwind Fingering charts
New Sounds for Flute by Mats Möller
Guide How to Prepare a Guitar on hypercustom.com
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.
Audio Interview to Margaret Leng Tan
Margaret Leng Tan
Margaret Leng Tan is a classical music artist known for her work as a professional toy pianist, performing in major cities around the world on her 51 cm-high toy pianos...

: Through the silence. John Cage in Memoriam 1912-1992, La Biennale, Venice, 2007. Toy and Prepared Piano

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