The freely-improvised music of British electric and steel-string acoustic guitarist Derek Bailey, who lived from 1930-2005, and the notated electric guitar music of British composer Richard Barrett (b. 1959) bear remarkable similarities, despite originating from different working methods, creative voices, and cultural contexts.
In order to understand this musical style, which I have named “radically idiomatic guitar music,” after a term created by Richard Barrett, I have conducted analyses of micro-level sonic events and larger musical structures utilizing the musicians’ own thoughts on their music along with an analytical approach which investigates oppositions of pitch and rhythmic motive, melodic range, register, and timbre. With each analytical approach, I have discovered a plurality of possible structural readings, which in each case encourage a flexible and creative approach to hearing the music. I have additionally investigated outside critical responses to their music, and briefly discuss the socio-cultural significance of the music through lenses provided by Jacques Attali and Ernst Bloch. I have found that, despite tensions in its creation and reception, the music strives to express a socialistic ideal through the creation of idealized sonic societies, where imagination may be explored free from the restrictions of top-down power structures.
Through this investigation, I have found that radically idiomatic guitar music, through its musical abstractions from conventional styles, its multi-layered musical structures which resist any single aural or analytical reading, and its problematization of familiar instrumental vocabulary, is capable of provides an exciting example of how music might be experienced without clear hierarchies or normalized sets of expectations, inviting us to play an active role in structuring its affect. It is at the same time a music of rigorous thought and craft, and a sound-world of sonic freedom and exploration.
My original composition, Energy Shapes, for electric guitar and electronics, attempts to exemplify this musical style both in its rigor and perceptual subjectivity, while altering some of the style’s basic characteristics by utilizing microtonal elements, by incorporating rhythmic grooves, and by at times making explicit genre references.

A radical idiom: Style and meaning in the guitar music of Derek Bayle and Richard Barret and energy shapes, an original composition for electric guitar and electronics sounds

PDF (Original composition - score) Supplemental Material