Sounding a History of the Guitar in Queensland: the First 100 Years and More

Abstract

This project examines the history of the guitar in Queensland from the start of European settlement in 1842 to the late 1940s, a research topic that has been hardly explored until recently. Therefore, it is not generally known that activities involving guitars and other fretted instruments were a significant element of musical life during this period. Rather than appearing in its soloistic capacity, the guitar was predominantly used in fretted instrument and plucked string ensemble contexts, and also to accompany other instruments and voices. It was an element in a musical culture that encouraged and fostered all types of small and large ensemble music. The outcomes of this project are presented in two parts: a dissertation and a creative portfolio. The dissertation is a foundational account of the guitar in Queensland, based on my thorough research into historical newspapers and related sources—sheet music, concert ephemera, photographs, maps, books, and journals—held in the National Library of Australia’s digital database, Trove. The creative portfolio expresses my artistic responses to the findings, and shows how I coalesced the research findings with processes of interpretation and activation to generate both new knowledge and continuing traditions around the instrument. A synthesis of historical research, historical musicology, and practice-based artistic research, the two parts constitute worded and sounded documentations of local guitar history. This project is significant because it is the first of its kind to document the history of the guitar in the state, particularly during the early period. In addition to enlivening the history of the guitar—highlighting the performers and the teachers, the instruments and the repertoire, and the many contexts and venues in which performances took place—this project demonstrates how an artistic practice can be substantiated and inspired by historical research. The overarching motivation for embarking on this investigation was to recover and reactivate what I felt was a neglected and, in many cases, much forgotten repertoire. Second to this was the desire to utilise the research findings to inform, influence, and inspire my artistic practices. I did this by adding recovered works to my repertoire; by creating historically influenced arrangements and original compositions; and by engaging instrumentalist partners to project a tradition into my contemporary context. This project is aimed to provide musicians—especially guitarists—and historians a source of information and also inspiration. It shows how the investigation of historical repertoire can nurture the practice of contemporary performer-composers and support the expression and significance of their work.