Guitar Voicing in Pop-Rock Music

Abstract

This study integrates guitar tablature and harmonic transformational theory to map transformational paths of motion through fretboard locations on the guitar. A focus on patterns of physical motion in guitar performance reveals how chords and figurations characteristic of pop-rock music can be understood as instances of more generalized hand position shapes and motions indexed to intervallic distances on the fretboard. The “fret-interval type” is introduced as a generalized expression of fretboard hand position information. Coordinating fretboard location with harmonic transformation provides information about the physical actions that move through pitch voicings and hand positions, forming specific embodiments of transformation that may project expressive meaning through correlations with fundamental body-derived image schema patterns.Genres of chord voicing and their harmonic networks are related to idiomatic actions of guitar playing as a means to explore chord patterning, riff structure, more complex chords, and alternate tuning. Examples from a range of pop-rock repertoires illustrate how guitar voicing routines can migrate across the full range of the guitar to project large-scale harmonic relationships, contributing to musical form while dynamically shaping contexts for vocal expression in songs. Guitar voicings are also explored as agents of cultural meaning that may combine to form stylistic tropes within songs, projecting a web of cultural references and associations.