My Sculptures are a very important
part of my compositional output as they are key pieces from
several different periods in my compositional life. Sculpture
I was written in 1980 and ‘81
when I was in college at California state University at Hayward
studying with Glen Glassow. It contains the greatest amount of
unusual techniques including singing and playing, stopped, inhaled
falsetto and talking through the horn. The main aspect of these
works is the multiphonics or singing and playing. Sculpture I
contains my most favorite effect; that of singing and playing
in unison and then gradually rising in pitch with my voice to
the perfect pitch. The interference beats accelerate rapidly
then gradually slow down to the still fifth. Sculpture I has
a few fragments from Beethoven’s second symphony minuet.
Sculpture II is more fugal in nature written in 1982 and was
originally a group of ten phrases to be played in any order but
has solidified into my favorite order.
Sculpture III is the most
difficult of the five having basically two different melodies
which alternate as each time the multiphonic chords increase
in size by a half step, so for the most part the are parallel
intervals in the melodies, cadenza in the “normal’ horn
instead of octaves. The is a phrase in this work that was latter
used as the theme for the horn and organ work, opus 42.
Sculpture IV starts with the same opening phrase as Sculpture
III since I started as a rewrite of the work. This work has two
sets of slides the go with it, on projected on the performer
and on a screen behind the horn player with some overlap. This
work is much more of a mature work than the previous in that
the phrases are more melodic. It was written entirely in the
practice room with horn, which is very unusual for me since I
write mostly on public transit in my spare time.
Sculpture V is based on a Byzantine chant which draws us to
a logical conclusion, a transition from avante-guard to medieval,
from chaotic to ordered.
“Moments when we see . . .” for horn and tape,
opus 44 and “Electronic Birds” for solo tape also
came from my work at California State University @ Hayward.
The birds piece was created
by recording various sounds using the synthesizers with patch
cords and overlapping them with real bird sounds. This reminds
me of sound effects from the Tv show “Lost
in Space”
Moments is more of a fully composed piece for horn and tape.
It started again with recorded sounds from the electronic studio
then feeding the tape through reel-to-reel players at very high
speeds. The bulk of he piece is a study into the multiphonics
on the horn growing from half step to the octave, which ends
the piece.
Baroque shapes and space music
(molto agitato) was written
in a normal way and the tape part is played by my Mac computer.
One of the interesting aspects of tape music is how fast the
technology has changed. These computer sounds from around 1996
are already antiquated. This work is a molto agitato with lots
of hard to hear high tones. Be carefully not to make any important
decisions when listening to this piece.
