Roland Dyens occupies a wholly unique space in the classical guitar world. His distinctive performances, always opening with an improvisation and including in-the-moment edits to both his pieces and those of other composers, set him apart from other classically trained guitarists who often live in reverence to the score. Moreover, his diverse creative output, both original compositions and arrangements, and unmistakable musical voice helped to expand and enhance the repertoire for the classical guitar. While completing his studies in Paris at l’Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris, Dyens often played around the city to earn a living, it was at these gigs that he learned jazz and improvisation techniques. Dyens would incorporate these skills…show more content… As Beavers writes, “Dyens’ forms are often drawn from popular music, his harmonies from jazz,” what’s more, he “can adapt and combine many different musical…show more content… Birch notes that “Dyens' motivation [for this practice] is not to show off or to display as many different techniques on his instrument as he can squeeze into a piece, but to use the full possibilities of the guitar to express the meaning of the original version he has used.” Often, Dyens would even create new symbols to indict what movement and sound he wished for the performer to achieve, one of the best examples of this can be found at the end of “Fuoco,” the final movement of Libra Sonatine (see Example 1). Here, Dyens uses invented symbols for a “Bartok pizzicato”, a specific slapping of the strings, tapping of the guitar, and even a description of how to strum the strings above the nut in order to communicate how to play one of the most famous passages in his