Matthew Rowan - Composer

2010 --
for solo guitar

Photo copyright © 2009 Christoph Jäggin.

Resonating Past is a reflection of the challenge of composing for solo guitar. As a guitarist of around 20 years I have been unproductive in writing for the instrument; the problem was not with technique or notation but with the strong pull towards the styles and repertoires of the guitarists I had spent countless hours studying, and I found myself writing music that did not sound my own. Faced with the exciting opportunity to write for contemporary classical guitarist Christoph Jäggin, I was determined to complete a work that did not succumb to, and subsequently fail because of, imitation. As I began to generate the rough ideas for Resonating Past I realised that no matter what I played, the associations of the guitar compositions and styles I had studied were lurking behind every attempt; so instead of pursuing conflict, I embraced these memories and decided to allow fragments to somehow resonate. The ensuing compositional approach was to create material through improvisation while accepting that certain techniques and ‘shapes’ on the guitar could appear familiar to me, and making sure that these associations did not sound obvious or contrived. Once this long-standing problem had been resolved I could concentrate on crafting Resonating Past without any worry of creative ambiguity and at the same time pay homage to many years of guitar fanaticism