Jaume Torrent: A New Technique for an Improved Guitar Tone

Jaume Torrent has developed and systemized a new guitar technique which allows for a more sonorous tone superior to conventional methods used world wide.

This technique is superior to other styles in the following aspects:

Projection of sound:

This style allows for a convincing and powerful guitar tone without the use of amplification. An immense majority of modern instrumentalists do not utilize the natural acoustic tone of the guitar, opting instead to amplify the guitar’s sound and hide behind distortion and microphones, which masks the sonorous quality of an acoustic tone.

Expressiveness:

As a result of a higher volume in the guitar tone, a greater expressiveness can be attained as distances between louder notes (forte) are allowed to propagate and softer notes (piano) are more noticeably so. This creates a much more dynamic tone and produces a stratification and clarity of differing intensities.

Integration of the guitar with other instruments:

Another result of increased volume is that it improves the ability of the guitar to integrate with other instruments in orchestral type arrangements as amplification is no longer required. The higher intensity of sound obtained by Jaume Torrent’s method reduces the need for other instruments (violin, cello, flutes, singers, etc.) to assimilate their own tones, and possibly reduce the quality, under fear of drowning out a guitarist playing the conventional, quieter style.

Application of common interpretive criteria to other instruments:

Traditionally, schools of guitar have based the expressiveness of the instrument on differences in the timbre of the instrument and underestimated—thus reducing the potential of the instrument—the necessity to create disparities between varying intensities of volume (differences of intensity). This technique devised by Jaume Torrent allows, for the first time in the history of the guitar, the incorporation of dynamic tones as were intended at the invention of the instrument. With the incorporation of this new expressive option the guitar can take part in the interpretive discourse alongside what are considered nobler, cultured instruments.

Improved clarity in the presentation of polyphonic passages:

The systemization of the technical resources which enables the study of this technique provides better awareness of tempo which improves clarity in polyphonic segments and, in general, in the diction and expressiveness of phrases. In the case of interpreting the polyphonic works of J.S. Bach (also known as the 'Lute Suites') Jaume Torrent attains a clarity which exhibits tones (and at the same time a vigor and intensity of sound) superior to those used by any other method.

Surpassing the classification of the guitar as solely an intimate instrument:

With this technique, the guitar stops being an instrument of merely intimate character and, with the presence of a more sonorous, bombastic tone, assumes the ability to achieve all of the range of expressive tones that the large majority of an artist’s repertoire demands.

Systemization and methodization of the technique:

This new method has for the first time in the instrument’s history altered the core understanding of the instrument. Knowledge of the process which governs motor skills helps to familiarize techniques necessary for the performance of a work and increases its efficiency. Moreover, this permits a smoother use of conscious expressive resources and allows an intense method of musical communication.

Creation of new effects and sounds:

As it applies to new compositions, thanks to this new technique, Jaume Torrent has encouraged the discovery of new effects and sounds entirely unheard of before.