I have always wondered about the potentials of a all-Prime (guitar) quartet versus a Niibori-styled quintet.
For friends who are unfamiliar with the Niibori-styled guitars, these are guitars designed and constructed (mainly) by the Niibori Guitar Academy in Japan. They are a range of different sized (hence tone and pitch) guitars built to resemble the instruments pitch-range of a full symphonic orchestra - the brainchild of Dr Hiroki Niibori.
In short, there are smaller guitars such as the Soprano and Alto guitars - which covers the violins in the orchestra; the Prime (normal) guitars - representing the middle voice, or perhaps the violas; the Bass guitars - the cellos; and the Contra Bass/Guitaron - which take the part of the Double-Bass. Of course, in a full Niibori setup, there are more instruments such as the Sopranino guitars, as well as the cembalos.. but let's not go there.
Thus, a Niibori-styled quintet would typically consist of maybe 2 Altos, 1 Prime, a Bass and a ContraBass/Guitaron. They would be the equivalent of a string quintet in the more commonly known sense.
A all-Prime quartet, however, consists of 4 identically pitched intruments guitars playing in an ensemble. I believe this is quite a rarity in the sense that seldom do we come across a setup like 4 violins, or 4 cellos, etc..
I cannot comment on the stringed instrument aspect, since I am neither a player nor a great fan in the first place. But having played in a Niibor quintet (in the now-defunt Masak) and now playing in a prime quartet Guitaresque, I begin to wonder about the different possibilities and potentials of these 2 setups.
First, it is clear that the Niibori quintet gets the points for pitch range. It has the Alto guitar, which stretches the upper range of the normal prime guitar by another half an octave. It also has the Guitaron (or Contrabass), which stretches the lower register by a whole octave. So essentially, you could play music which affords a 1.5 octave extra worth of notes, in terms of its pitch expanse. That is surely a great advantage.
Having said that, I cannot but feel that the prime quartet has a distinct edge when it comes to versatility of music that could be interpreted. For instance, I've always found the Niibori guitars a little wanting when they are used to play Brazilian (e.g. samba) and jazz music. Somehow, because of the tone or sound quality produced by the Altos, it makes the general output sound rather "mandolin-like". That, to me, sometimes makes the song rather "old" sounding - ie. it sounds like period music from the Handel or Vivaldi era.
On the other hand, a Prime quartet has better range of control when it comes to creating specific tones. As an example, it is much easier to play tasto or ponticello on the prime guitar than on the Alto (or even Bass) guitar. Techniques such as rasguerdo and (artificial) harmonics also are performed and more importantly, sound better on the normal prime guitars.
Of course, the skill level of the players ultimately determines how well the ensemble performs, but given the fact that the Niibori Academy players are arguably some of the best ensemble guitar players in the world (especially when it comes to coordination and syncrhonised playing), I still cringe when I listen to recordings of some of their attempts to play jazz or music not belonging to the baroque/classical eras.
You can argue that it could be due to the quality (or lack of) of the arrangement itself, but surely, that is also a reflection of the limitations of the Niibori instruments per se.
To be fair, I do feel that Niibori quintet setup, besides adapting wonderfully to period music, also get high marks for ballet-style contemporary music. Just listen to their rendition of some of Richard Clayderman's classic pieces like Coup de Coeur or Marriage d'Amour and you'll know what i mean. :)
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