This lively fanfare was written for two of my favorite instruments. They don’t get to play together that often. Here’s the opening salvo.
Entries Tagged as '*Music'
Fanfare for Viola and Trombone
July 12th, 2011 · Comments Off on Fanfare for Viola and Trombone
Music for Two Monochords: Primes
July 11th, 2011 · Comments Off on Music for Two Monochords: Primes
I have a nice old-fashioned monochord that I often use to teach music theory. Contemplation of the relationship between number and pitch led me to write this little piece, based on the primes between 1 and 100. It’s delightfully grating.
Viola
July 9th, 2011 · Comments Off on Viola
A love song to the viola, lamenting that the poor instrument is usually relegated to offbeats, set to viola offbeats. The viola does play a solo at the end, though.
Prelude
July 9th, 2011 · Comments Off on Prelude
This bustling prelude is taken from the music I wrote for Bill Irwin’s show The Courtroom, back in 1985. And it starts out like this.
Hapax Legomenon
July 9th, 2011 · 1 Comment
I am intrigued by the hapax legomenon, a word that appears only once in a given work, author, or language. For a musical equivalent, I placed one F♯ against randomized 4-pitch diatonic arpeggios in C.
The Song of the Hoop Snake
July 8th, 2011 · Comments Off on The Song of the Hoop Snake
A three-part palindromic round, modeled on everyone’s favorite mythical reptile, the hoop snake.
Eight Riddles
July 8th, 2011 · Comments Off on Eight Riddles
I had forgotten about these, and rediscovered them while going through some old papers. Eight riddles are set diatonically, traveling through the circle of fifths. My notes said that I planned to double them with violin. That might be nice.
The Musical Underbelly
July 8th, 2011 · Comments Off on The Musical Underbelly
In 2007, I was an artist in residence at NYC’s venerable downtown theater Dixon Place. I put together a program of musical curiosities, based on similar shows I’d done for the INFO FortFest and the Fortean Times UnConvention. The program included music by Rameau’s Nephew, Lewis Carroll, and the Count of Saint-Germain; an odd tune […]
This Honeycomb Matrix of Atoms Known as the Material World
July 7th, 2011 · Comments Off on This Honeycomb Matrix of Atoms Known as the Material World
André Breton once said that he wasn’t interested in music, because he couldn’t imagine representing the world with sound. I do disagree; and find diatonic cluster drones as good a symbol as any. This organ piece is one example; here’s how it begins.
Waltz
July 7th, 2011 · 1 Comment
This rather exuberant waltz was written for a performance with Bob Berky at the Museum of Modern Art (NYC) in 1985. Here’s the way it starts.