Black & White: Voicing/Articulation/Pedal Studyfor piano solo[2:07]Awaiting a train one night at Boston's North Station (it runs 7 Lines), I concocted a doodle for the piano's white keys (mod 7), as follows:
1. Group an octave's worth of A-thru-G so that D, the intervallic mirror point, is at its center.
2. Starting at D, play these keys sequentially outward: up (D E F G); then non-redundantly down (C B A).
3. Repeat, still from D, but skipping -- play every 2nd item, wrapping as necessary (D F, C A, E G, B).
4. Now every 3rd item (D G, A, F, B, E, C).
5. Then every 4th; 5th; 6th -- yielding altogether six bars of 7/N time, with the last half a once-rotated retrogression of the first.
6. Repeat steps 2-thru-5, but with the starting pattern one white key expanded (3rds, not 2nds), covering now nearly two octaves (D F A C, B G E).
7. Again those steps, from starting intervals one more expanded -- so, 4ths (D G C F, A E B).
8. Then from 5ths; 6ths; 7ths; 8vas -- realizing finally what we had stopped short of at first in not playing every 7th member.With a few twists (pattern inversions and telescopings) for surprise's sake, the doodle became this work's 2nd movement, once a followup experiment -- for textural/pianistic opposition's sake and realizing for the black keys instead -- became the 1st. And in afterthought, a 3rd movement then conceived and despaired of reconciling the others.
There are 3 movements: Distracted; Hell-bent; Lost