Light sent back, bent - Percussion Quartet

Instrumentation:

Player 1

Copper pipes: D E F # A B D

Bass Drum (shared with Player 2)

Player 2

Copper pipes: Identical to player 2 but tuned approximately one quarter tone down Bass Drum (shared with Player 1)

Player 3

Snare Drum: Muted or with extra drum skin/small cymbal on top. Electronic in sound and no ping or ringing.

Hi-Hat: Very crisp with no ringing or noise after initial strike.

Medium Floor Tom: muted in bars 1-146 (drums 1)

Low Floor Tom

Player 4

Identical instrumention to player 3, all unison in pitch as possible

Technical notes:

Players 3 & 4 should attach tubing to the 2 low floor toms and blow air in and release air out to change pitch of the drums. This is indicated with a drum tension staff above the drum staff at relevant passages. The bottom staff line indicates regular tension. The middle line indicates moderate tension (just enough to be perceptible against the other drum). The top line should approach the pitch of the medium floor tom.

An "x" notehead on the snare drum indicates a cross-stick. In passages with activity just before the attack the cross-stick should be played backwards with the tip end hitting the rim. In passages with a grace note just before the cross stick the tip should strike the drum head and the shaft should be rocked downwards into the near side of the rim. This can be done with two hands and a traditional cross stick when time allows.

The sixteenth note figures that increase in length should be played quasi-buzzed or doublestroked. The accumulation of length is the priority and not the articulations of each attack.

Mallets:

Soft: A soft rubber or yarn. A mallet that is dark in tone and doesn't reveal much of the upper partials.

Medium: A round tone capable of playing sustained and quiet but also articulate and bright at a loud dynamic.

Plastic: Bright, electric tone. Dynamics should always be treated as sounding and not attack weight.

General Sound Instructions:

This piece is about long unfolding and accumulation/dissipation of energy. Drums should be careful not to overpower the pipes or creep up in volume. Dynamics are relative to the entire ensemble and not each instrument. Pipe phrases in the first section should be careful to be phrased and not blurred as the phrases get longer.

In general the piece is characterized by composite rhythms and figures between the two intrument pairs. This is most effective when drum sounds are matched in timbre. The drums should sound as crisp and "electronic" as possible in the opening section. The drums shoould be as far apart as possible to convey the stereo panning effect but not so far that the aggregate sound is diminished.

STAGE DIAGRAM

Program Note

Light sent back, bent is both the title of this piece and the poetic image I kept in my mind while writing it. From the cutting and tuning of copper pipes a microtone apart to selecting identical pairings of instruments for the players, I was interested in how nearly identical timbres and rhythms could interact with and bounce off of each other. The piece was started and abandoned a few times during the compositional process which mirrors the uncertainty of the pandemic in which it was written. Ultimately I scrapped everything but the instrumentation and started over with two goals in mind:

1) A patient accumulation of energy revealing an insistent rhythm; and

2) a quiet reflection and decompression exploring subtleties in timbre and the melodic possibilities that a pentatonic pitch collection offers. A few imprecise phrases from a hymn I will leave unnamed find their way into the piece.

Light sent back, bent for Sō Percussion