CELLO MAP: A HANDBOOK OF CELLO TECHNIQUE FOR PERFORMERS AND COMPOSERS By Ellen Fallowfield A Thesis Submitted to The University of Birmingham for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of Music College of Arts and Law The University of Birmingham October 2009 University of Birmingham Research Archive e-theses repository This unpublished thesis/dissertation is copyright of the author and/or third parties. The intellectual property rights of the author or third parties in respect of this work are as defined by The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or as modified by any successor legislation. Any use made of information contained in this thesis/dissertation must be in accordance with that legislation and must be properly acknowledged. Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the permission of the copyright holder. Abstract Many new sounds and new instrumental techniques have been introduced into music literature since 1950. The popular approach to support developments in modern instrumental technique is the catalogue or notation guide, which has led to isolated special effects. Several authors of handbooks of technique have pointed to an alternative, strategic, scientific approach to technique as an ideological ideal. I have adopted this approach more fully than before and applied it to the cello for the first time. This handbook provides a structure for further research. In this handbook, new techniques are presented alongside traditional methods and a ‘global technique’ is defined, within which every possible sound-modifying action is considered as a continuous scale, upon which as yet undiscovered techniques can also be slotted. The ‘map’ of the title is meant in the scientific sense of the word; connections are made between: ‘actions that a cellist makes’ and ‘sounds that a cello can produce’. In some cases, where existing scientific theory is insufficient to back up these connections, original empirical research has been undertaken and areas for further research have been suggested. Within this system there are no special effects, rather a continuum of actions with a clear relationship to sound. Acknowledgments Heartfelt thanks to Dr Erik Oña and Dr Mary O’Neill for their support. Thanks also to cellists Karolina Öhman, Deborah Tolksdorf and Anita Leuzinger for playing for the experiments found in the Appendix, and to Chikashi Miyama and Cornelius Bohn for making the recordings. I am very grateful to the Leverhulme Trust for the financial assistance they provided. Contents Context and Methodology 1 How to use this resource 40 Before using this resource 43 Actions Index 44 Parameters of Sounds Index 52 Index of figures 56 The Resource 59 Section A Excitation of the String 59 A0 Definitions of plucking, striking, and bowing a string 59 A1 Point of contact 62 A1.1 ‘Ordinario’ and ‘behind’ the stopping finger 62 A1.2 Proximity to the string’s mid point 64 A2 String displacement and excitation force 77 A3 Direction of excitation/displacement 89 A4 Choice of exciter (width and density) 95 A5 The left hand 105 A5.1 Left hand position 105 A5.2 Left hand finger pressure 107 A5.3 Contact time between stopping finger and string 111 A6 Changing the tension of the string 113 A6.1 Pulling the string across the fingerboard with the stopping finger 113 A6.2 Pushing/pulling the string between bridge and tailpiece 114 A6.3 Scordatura 114 A7 Slide effects 116 A7.1 Placing an object (‘slide’) on the string during the decay period 116 A7.2 Exciting a string after an object (‘slide’) has been placed onto it (quasi guitarists’ bottle neck) 117 A8 Excitation of string beyond bridge/nut 118 A8.1 Between bridge and tailpiece 118 A8.2 In the peg box 119 Summaries Section A 120 Section B Harmonics 125 B1 Introduction to harmonics 125 B2 Touch points 130 B3 Point of contact 137 B4 Excitation force 139 B5 Choice of exciter (width/density) 140 B6 Position of the touching finger 141 B7 Pressure of the touching finger 144 B8 Contact time between touching finger and string 142 B9 Qualities of the touching finger/object 142 B10 Artificial harmonics 143 B11 Multiple node natural harmonics 144 B12 Left hand methods that particularly differ from the stopped string case 145 B12.1 Double-touched harmonics 145 B12.2 Vibrato and Pitch bends 146 B12.3 Trills 146 B12.4 Bisbigliando effect 146 B12.5 Glissandi 147 B13 Multiphonics 148 B14 Tuning of harmonics 149 Summaries Section B 150 Section C The Prepared Cello 154 C1 Soft objects/mutes 154 C1.1 Damping with a large, soft object/mute (e.g. the flat hand) 154 C1.2 Damping at the bridge/nut with a small soft object/mute (e.g. the fingertips) 155 C2 Dense objects/mutes as rattles 156 C3 Preparing the string with a fixed object/mute 162 C4 Preparing the strings such that their vibration is interdependent 163 C5 Muting at the bridge/(body) 164 Summaries Section C 165 Section D Excitation of the Body, Bridge, Tailpiece and Bow Hair 167 D1 Striking or bowing/stroking the body and bridge 167 D2 Plucking, striking or stroking/bowing the tailpiece 168 D3 Using body/bridge as amplifier 173 Summaries Section D 175 Epilogue 176 Appendix 178 Experiment 1: the influence of plucking direction 178 Experiment 2: frequency variation of harmonics 188 Bibliography 196 Context and Methodology In the past fifty years a new genre of musical literature has developed: the handbook of modern instrumental technique. It is the first body of texts regarding instrumental technique to be aimed at a mixed composer-performer readership, being an amalgamation of composers’ instrumentation books and instrumentalists’ methods and studies, which were previously separate. In this introduction I will outline the historical provision of texts regarding cello technique; review the literature of modern handbooks on instrumental technique; and consider the ideological inconsistencies in the way technique has been discussed and the vocabulary that has developed around changes in technique. Finally, I will present my methodology in the context of these issues. Technique is not fixed. Musicians usually use the word technique as a measure of their playing ability; it is not fixed because it can be improved upon. More generally, technique, in the sense of what playing a particular instrument physically involves, has changed considerably through time: technique has a history. Cello technique developed, throughout the mid to late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to include, for example thumb position, spiccato bowing, vibrato, use of an end pin. So, despite the surge of additions made in the twentieth century, the idea of developing technique is itself not new or surprising. There is a body of literature that documents technical development, and there are study or exercise books that support instrumentalists. Valerie Walden provides a list of these texts.1 Walden cites the first example of a text describing the method of cello playing, written in Paris in 1741, which, along with other early examples of cello methods, compared cello technique to that of the viola da gamba. As cello technique evolved in parallel with developments in 1 See Valerie Walden, ‘Technique, style and performing practice to c.1900’, in Robin Stowell (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Cello (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000) 178-94 and Valerie Walden, One Hundred Years of Violincello: A History of Technique and Performance Practice, 1740-1840 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). 1 the instrument (primarily the use of the endpin c.18452 and the use of the Tourte bow c.18003) and the rise in solo repertoire, several pedagogical texts were published with the aim of updating the method of cello playing. Walden notes in particular the development of fingering patterns by Salvatore Lanzetti (Amsterdam, c.1756-67),4 the new bowing method devised by Jean-Louis Duport (Paris, 1806) and systematic approaches to fingering and bowing by Joseph Fröhlich (Cologne, 1808)5 and Johann Schetky (London, 1811).6 Some studies from this period are still in use today, notably those by Jean-Louis Duport.7 Walden describes the development of a Romantic cello technique in the first half of the nineteenth century, during which cello technique and cello pedagogy, as we understand them today, were established. Since 1850, the texts that describe the method of cello playing have mostly had a pedagogic focus, particularly describing methods of teaching.8 The studies that were published in this period build towards the virtuoso cello technique still widely aspired to today. Many of these studies are still in widespread use, notably those by Grüzmacher,9 Popper10 and Feuillard.11 To summarise: throughout the instrument’s history, there exist texts, which have described the method of cello playing, often from a pedagogic approach, and study/exercise books, which present musical scores and exercises for developing technical skill. Woodwind players have an excellent resource that compares early sources describing articulation in early wind music.12 The sources themselves are presented in such a way that the reader is able to see directly the words and 2 John Dilworth, ‘The cello: origins and evolution’, in Robin Stowell (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Cello (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000) 14. 3 John Dilworth, ‘The bow: its history and development’, in Robin Stowell (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Cello (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000) 32. 4 Salvatore Lanzetti, Principes ou l’Application de Violoncelle, par tous les tons de la manière la plus facile (Amsterdam, c.1756-67). 5 Joseph Fröhlich, Violoncelloschule (Cologne, 1808). 6 Johann Schetky, Practical and Progressive Lessons for the Violincello (London, 1811) 7 Jean-Louis Duport, 21 Etudes for Solo Cello (Paris, c.1813). 8 Titles include: Hermann Hemberlein, Violoncelloschule, neuste, praktischste und leicht verständliche Method für Schul- und Selbstunterricht, Op.7 (Leipzig, 1887).