Fretting the Future is a video series in which I explore the evolving possibilities of the guitar through contemporary music, experimentation, and close listening.

Rooted in classical technique but unconstrained by tradition, I approach the guitar not as a fixed object, but as an idea — an instrument without a single shape, tuning, or identity. Shaped by every place it has been imagined and every hand that has touched it, the guitar becomes a site of inquiry where history, technique, and curiosity intersect. Each episode centers on music created or reimagined through rehearsal, dialogue, and performance, guided by my questions as much as a composer’s intentions.

“The history of ideas has also got to be the history of people liking each other. Art is marked by these moments when certain artists take a liking to each other. They get along, they become friends. Something like love circulates between them.”
— Pola Oloixarac, Mona: A Novel

These episodes are little love letters. — Thomas Schuttenhelm