Today, I had a session with Fábio to explore different aspects to consider when writing for guitar.
At the beginning we started to explore how many seconds a sound could have when played on the guitar, open string, fingered string in a specific dynamic. I suggested Fábio to play any note of the chord 1 original and opposite poles. Fábio, played some notes in different dynamics and the result were (image 1)
Image 1
The first note was B2 - which is a fretted note - in fff, the result was 12 seconds. The second note was C#3 - which is a fretted note - in mp, the result was 4’82’’ seconds. The third note was G2 - which is an open string - in ppp, the result was 5’92’’ seconds. Fábio decided to play G2 but in fff and the result was 9 seconds. The fourth note was A#3 - which is a fretted note - in mf, the result was 5’53 seconds. The fifth note was D#4 - which is a fretted note - in f, the result was 4’55’’ seconds. The sixth note was E quarter-tone 4 - which is a fretted note - in mf, the result was 5’15’’.
All these math were made to try to control the sound that a specific chord can have when orchestrated on the string quartet - having the guitar as a main instrument in the quartet.
All these can guide me to nothing, but it’s good to have all these materials in case I need it.
On the second half of our session, Fábio and I were exploring all inversions possible on the guitar of my chord 1 original and opposite pole. The result were: (image 2)
Image 2 - chord 1 original and opposite pole guitar inversions possibilities
At the end, I asked Fábio how quick he can change chords within these inversions and he said very quickly and easy.
Still, we were trying to play quarter-tones in harmonics on the guitar and we discovered that there is a way of writing harmonic E quarter-tone (image 3)
Image 3