The Guitar Intricacy Atlas — Post-Prog-Metal

The Guitar Intricacy Atlas

Seventy-four named mechanisms across the world's guitar traditions, grouped by what part of the sound they act on

A rasgueado is not a strum. La pompe is not rhythm guitar. The baixaria is not a bassline. Each is a named mechanism with a defined physical action, and naming it precisely is the difference between describing a tradition and gesturing at it.

Part I — The Atlas (74 intricacies)

Left column is the physical action. Right column is the same mechanism described by its sound — what a listener hears when it happens.

The five sections

• Touch — 19 of the seventy-four.
• Pitch — 15 of the seventy-four.
• Harmony — 12 of the seventy-four.
• Rhythm — 12 of the seventy-four.
• Timbre — 16 of the seventy-four.

Each section groups the mechanisms that act on the same part of the sound, and a mechanism is listed once, under the thing it changes most. That is a judgement rather than a law: a rasgueado changes rhythm as much as touch, and la pompe is filed under rhythm although half of what makes it recognisable is the muting hand.

How to read an entry

Every entry gives the physical action on the left and what a listener actually hears on the right. The two are not the same, and the gap between them is where most description of guitar playing goes wrong — a technique named after the hand that performs it tells you nothing about the sound it makes. The point of naming seventy-four of them precisely is that traditions become comparable: two players who share no repertoire may be running the same mechanism, and two who sound alike often are not.

The traditions that use these mechanisms are a separate matter and are not mapped here.