11/ 8for autopiano solo[5:43]2nd Edition (2022):
This edition consists entirely in the addition of articulation indications, specifically, legato slurs. Within a slur: every note except the last is to be connected to the next; the last is instead to be curtailed, as are all non-slurred notes, to produce an articulative silence before the next event. All slurs are here positioned according to melodic direction -- below ascents, above descents.
There are several articulation schemes. In the upper section of pages 1,3,4,5,7: for any three successive notes X Y Z, if interval Y-Z continues in the X-Y interval direction, then X is slurred to Y; otherwise not. In the lower section slurs parallel interval direction as follows: on pages 1 3 5 7, upward-vs-downward slurrings alternate by rest- delimited subsections; on page 2 the slurred intervals ascend; on page 6 they descend. Overall, three sections have no slurring.
On the chance that parts of this work may tempt human pianists, I should note that the sustain pedal will be needed to realize some connections (as the slurs contain up to five wide intervals). Please ensure that slur-end pedal release is prompt enough to yield a perceptible detachment.
Tempo values are c/o Rosegarden. The audio is now realized via Pianoteq's "D4 Pointillist" instrument.
1st Edition (2016):
Interpreting the 2016 election to spell the end of our democracy, if not as well that of civilization and of the planet itself to boot, I have thought to concoct some music befitting the occasion.As it happens, Leonardo Bonacci's oryctolagus-breeding integer series (whose each next term sums the just-prior two), when constrained by modulus 887, yields a very special closed cycle of
members. Its breakdown by numbers of members, here with the upper lines in J-language syntax, looks as follows: Intending the cycle as a departure point for pitch assignment, but with a pitch vocabulary limited to ca 88 (hardly 887) keys, I imposed secondary modular constraints, providing workable 1-to-7-octave ranges in turn variously transposed. (Through this process, naturally, the original source cycle as a recognizable entity evaporated.)+/ (3,4,3,4,3,4,3) * 37
+ +/ (3,4,3,4,3,4,3) * 37
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= 1776
Committing to a single-line progression and locking durations at one value here provided the basis for a perpetuum mobile movement (nearly - there are rests) whose event count total (including rests) would indeed match the above quoted.
There evolved all told four dozen 37-event measures grouped alternately in 3s or 4s. Each measure grouping is headed by indications for its range in octaves (Span), its octave transposition from keyboard center (Up/Dn) and its MM setting (with invisible pauses, 1 tick per 4 events). Speeds relate geometrically to ensure proportional contrasts, which dynamics are gauged to parallel.
The rests, replacing what would otherwise be immediate pitch repetitions, are meant in their senseless irregularity to spoil listener expectations of continuity or "flow".
The audio file accompanying this score was generated by the composer via Rosegarden and Pianoteq's "D4 Super Tonk" instrument.