Musical Traits of Contemporary Classical Music: Extended Techniques and Integration of Technology

Once you exit the lush harmonies of the Romantic period and work your way into the explosion of genres and artistic concepts that was 20th Century music you get a variety of new ways to use instruments.

These aren’t necessarily new ideas but there were increasingly fewer rules governing what made ‘good’ music and plenty of the non-traditional 20th Century music revelled inn experimentation and freedom from traditional orchestration or idiomatic writing. There are a huge number of areas to look at but the use of extended techniques in Contemporary Classical Music is worth mentioning.

Stringed instruments use of Col Legno (hitting the strings with the back of the bow alla Holst’s ‘Mars’) or Sul Ponticello (On The Bridge creating a glassy and brittle sound) allowed interesting and often eerie atmospheric textures to be created, transporting listeners to new places. Clicking effects (battuto or beaten) or whispers (trattoria- drawn) evoked non-traditional sounds, sometimes using pencils or sticks for lighter effects. Similarly, the haunting Bartok Pizzicato comes to mind where the players lift up and snap the strings down producing a loud and jarring sound.

Multiphonics in wind instruments where multiple notes can be heard simultaneously and use of harmonics in violins (listen to 90% of epic film scores that start with held violin harmonic notes) signal the general use of trying to expand the range of instruments This, in conjunction with bending notes and use of quarter tones or microtonal intervals, meant that traditional instruments could be used in new and exciting ways.

One of the staples of Neoclassical and Contemporary Classical music is the prepared piano where objects have been placed on the strings to change the nature of the sound. The obvious one here is the more tonally-even felt piano that dominates the modern solo piano market.

With regard to musical inventiveness, I remember when talking to a composer when I was much younger about how to make pieces more interesting and he suggested grabbing any two household items and seeing if they sounded good whilst captured on a microphone. I thought this was a pithy comment until he then went and created a rhythm track using a barbecue gas canister being played by spaghetti for sticks. It struck me as being fantastically inventive (even if he swapped out the spaghetti for brush drumsticks).

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Nick Pike is a London-based composer, pianist, saxophonist, producer, and educator with over 15 years of professional experience. His music blends neoclassical piano with jazz, funk, and contemporary influences, drawing comparisons to Ludovico Einaudi, Yiruma, and Ólafur Arnalds. Alongside original compositions, Nick offers music services including scoring for film, TV, and advertising, piano and saxophone recording, arranging for strings and horns, and professional mixing and production.

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