I'll tell you guys that Michael Nicolella has made a good point for me. On his CD Shard he demonstrates that classical guitar is just a part of a larger thing. That thing is compositional guitar.

What this composer/performer does is within the scope of a CD he has either composed or performed some very interesting music utilizing all guitar types at his means.

Rather than grab at preexisting classification of music as in post-modern let me explain that we are all post-modern. The modern period is over. It lasted from the late 19th century until the late 1940s.

Since within this CD there is classical, steel string and electric guitar plus the usual effects to be performed with prerecorded materials we can consider the fact that this is not a classical guitar album but contains guitar music that is cutting edge.

Although Nicolella is a composer/performer of the classical guitar the CD rightfully starts with his own compositions and it progresses through the steel string with Steve Reich, and the title cut, Shard by Elliot Carter for classical guitar. There are several interesting pieces with the electric guitar and prerecorded sounds such as Christopher DaLaurenti's "grey angel." Also the cogent piece "Grab It!" graces the CD and is really the highlight.

I witnessed, "Grab it!" in 2003 St. Joe guitar festival, performed by Kevin Gallagher, people walk out on this piece because it is such a good piece of art. Nicolella performes this piece by Jacob Ter Veldhuis which is scored for prerecorded materials and electric guitar.

The composer is maybe aware of Harry Partch's expletive work, and John Schnieder chose to record this Partch piece without the poetry scratched on a Barstow, CA bus bench.

Nicolella has a parental advisory on his CD. Is this nerve or what? Honestly I would have done the same and watched like Kevin did, the old people walk out on a piece of high art. "Grab It!" is my favorite piece of serious music for this period thus far. I love Rautavaara but this single work has an extremely cogent statement and challenges.

So let me use Nicolella as a battle-axe. This is a compositional guitar CD it is not a collection of old and new works for the classical guitar. It has classical guitar within it but it stands equally along with the other types of guitar pieces.

Nicolella speaks the condition we are in if you are like me and used the guitar and processors to record modern dance music and film scores. It is compositional music and the guitar is the exponent.

When Michael Hedges died in a car accident I was on the morning shift at the local NPR affiliate, KVPF-Valley Public Radio in Fresno. I immediately knew the loss to the classical guitar.

Many classical guitar composers have looked at Hedges very carefully. There is not one contemporary composer/performer that hasn't absorbed Hedges' technical toolbox.

Not only the technical toolbox, some of the open and post-modern harmonic material has been absorbed. He absorbed Stravinsky, minimalism and classical guitar at Peabody and was the student of the great guitar pedagogue Aaron Shearer.

Hedges wrote compositional guitar and wasn't afraid to be beautiful and I mourned his loss more than Segovia's even though Michael's instrument of choice was the Martin steel string. Michael was a composer and that's what the guitar needs now. Plenty of boys and girls can out play Segovia these days.

Can compositional guitar replace the classical guitar concert? It would be preposterous to think so. The classical guitar performed by a virtuoso still thrills me.

Shawn Persinger is a steel string guitar composer/performer and also makes the point that very serious music can be done on guitars other than classical.

Persinger is Anton Webern in his minimalism in form; he's Hedges in his technical approach, Charles Ives in a structural dissonant way and himself in his musical language language.

The guitar is a fantastic instrument for its limitations. Brevity is the stock and trade of the guitar and non-tonal and self-reflective musical materials love the guitar. Persinger makes use of the guitar in this and other ways.

Knowing quite well that the guitar is an orchestra in miniature, Persinger is a color man. Using an incredibly rich amount of special tunings he makes some of the most colorful guitar music I've ever heard.

Kevin Gallagher, probably best known for his fabulous performances of early music with classical guitar, Gallagher has, of late, turned his attention to the electric guitar and is performing very serious art music on this instrument.

Having witnessed his performance of "Grab It!" and other modern works for electric guitar and effects, Gallagher fortified my thought that the classical guitar is only one vehicle for compositional music.

The question is; "Can electric guitar be a vehicle for a complete solo performance?" I'd venture to say not without the addition of effects. Is it belittling the guitar to plug it into a rack of gear and performing solo music? No, unless there is a power outage.

The key factor for the performance of solo electric guitar is the rightness of the material for this genre.

Compositional Electric Guitar If you look at the attached piece see the possibility that it could be played without pick. It really isn't easy with the classical articulation hand. P-I could alternate with M-A in the upper voices. It is massively clumsy. This piece is for another instrument.

It's very obvious that this is to be played with pick-fingers at any substantially rapid clock.

The attached piece is also a blues progression of compositional hacking. This was a piece in that I said to myself, "let me begin with a blues progression and a chromatic bass line in some area of the guitar neck that will yield some open and fretted notes." You might say that I tried to make this piece fit in the middle of the "Guitar music or Music on the guitar" continuum. My wife calls the piece irritating.

Electric Guitar Etude, Page 1
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Electric Guitar Etude, Page 2
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At this point in the discussion we are talking strictly about technique though. The form and content of this blues is superfluous other than it can't really be played without the pick and fingers.

Pick-fingers make this level of implied independence a solo act. You have parts and not a part. Fullness is achieved within the context of one guitar.

For future reference look back to New Millennium Guitar for further discussion of this topic.