Design for performability: a proposal for democratic redesign of the classical guitar

Abstract

Mastery of a musical instrument, including an ability to reach virtuosity in expression and performance, is commonly achieved through a lifelong commitment to practise. The specific instrument played has a crucial role in this journey. This paper reports on design research that aimed to determine the potential for redesigning the classical guitar, whether iteratively or radically, from the perspective of key stakeholder groups: luthiers, composers, and performers. A total of 25 interviews were conducted and analysed to identify shared and unique concerns amongst the stakeholder groups. The findings are used to conceive and develop a new design-related musical term ‘performability’, which builds upon the established term ‘playability’ but has much stronger interactional and experiential dimensions. Furthermore, the paper provides insights into ways in which an industrial designer can contribute to classical guitar design as a fourth stakeholder. Industrial design expertise is proposed to provide a mediating and catalysing role for democratic (i.e. multi-stakeholder, multi-perspective) instrument design or redesign. The paper concludes with a proposal for a ‘design for performability’ framework suited to co-design sessions aiming to achieve a highly performable classical guitar.

KEYWORDS:

• Classical guitar
• performability
• playability
• virtuosity
• industrial design

Acknowledgements

We would like to express our special thanks of gratitude to the participants who kindly accepted to take part in this research and made a valuable contribution to the debates over design quality and playability of musical instruments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The science of musical instruments and their classifications.

2 C-CD: Carlo Domeniconi, C-CS: Ceyhun Şaklar, C-EB: Ertuğrul Bayraktar, C-EK: Ertuğ Korkmaz, C-FK: Füsun Köksal, C-OT: Onur Türkmen, C-TE: Turgay Erdener, L-AE: Ana Espinosa Rodríguez, L-AM: Andrés Marvi, L-CL: Casimiro Lozano, L-EP: Ejder Pamukçu, L-HH: Hermann Hauser, L-PB: Paulino Bernabé, L-TS: Theo Scharpach, P-AK: Ahmet Kanneci, P-DL: Daniel López, P-EB: Ender Bilge, P-HM: Heike Matthiesen, P-IR: Ignacio Rodes, P-JM: Jose María Gallardo, P-KK: Kağan Korad, P-KT: Kürşad Terci, P-MD: Marcos Díaz, P-OH: Oscar Herrero, P-SE: Soner Egesel.

3 ‘Many times we forget that “the last chain” (orig. el ultimo eslabón) is just communication. That’s the miracle of music. What I play changes something in you, and because that thing is changing in you, you give me back your energy. We are mediums. Anything that makes this miracle unstable, is not good for virtuosity, or for the final development of music, which is the miracle of expression, the intensity of expression’.

4 ‘We are still fighting against the volume, so we are trying to be heard instead of striving for a better sound. We only produce a beautiful sound when we play solo’.

5 ‘If a performer has to give hundreds of concerts a year, they have to have a playable guitar’.

6 ‘I think that the concept of sound is getting lost while many players including students and professionals playing without any characteristics in their sound unique to them. I think so; or if not getting lost, they are converging into a uniform and standard sound’.

7 ‘I don't consider different guitars when writing for it, I believe this is the final result of classical guitar traditions and I am very happy with that’.

8 ‘I believe I shouldn’t be doing so. I hope my music will be played by many artists, thus, I prefer to write in a way that it can sound pretty well even on a low quality instrument’.

9 ‘Well, not actually, for me that is the ability of the performer, I don't care whether they have a high-end guitar or not. I ignore the guitar, personally’.

10 ‘[W]e, composers, don’t know very well that an elevated fingerboard makes it easier for higher registers, and actually we don’t care, because it is the performer's issue, they should be in charge of it. I don’t want to compose keeping their difficulties in my mind; I have my own difficulties like being unique’.