Researcher ORCID Identifier
Date of Award
Spring 2024
Degree Type
Open Access Dissertation
Degree Name
Music, PhD
Program
School of Arts and Humanities
Advisor/Supervisor/Committee Chair
William Alves
Dissertation or Thesis Committee Member
Robert Zappulla
Dissertation or Thesis Committee Member
Mark Howard
Terms of Use & License Information
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Rights Information
© 2024 Kenneth M Cotich
Keywords
Guitar, Instrument design, Microtonality, Music analysis, Musicology
Subject Categories
Music | Musicology | Music Theory
Abstract
Microtonal music in the United States has a significant connection with the American West Coast. Influential microtonal musicians and theorists originated on the West Coast or passed through California, subsequently inspiring future generations of composers to work outside of twelve-tone equal temperament (12tet). This project begins by examining the early trailblazers of music education and composition in California who sought to rearticulate the fundamentals of music. Two substantial sources that influenced new musical materials were the harmonic series and non-Western music and culture. Microtonal music in California is then examined through the efforts of a series of outsider speculative music theorists who experimented with building microtonal scales and instruments. One instrument that Californian microtonalists have utilized since the mid-twentieth century is the guitar. The guitar is an exemplary instrument for demonstrating microtones through string harmonics, scordatura, and pitch bending. However, achieving expanded pitch relations requires drastic modification to the guitar's fixed frets. This investigation reveals how the rich history of microtonal music emanating from the American West Coast is connected to the microtonal guitar in performance, theory, and construction.
ISBN
9798382746982
Recommended Citation
Cotich, Kenneth M.. (2024). The Tradition of Microtonal Guitar on the American West Coast. CGU Theses & Dissertations, 764. https://scholarship.claremont.edu/cgu_etd/764.
