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I made a significant change in the structure of the piece in this version. To reduce the excessive density, I used a technique that Harry Partch employed in Castor & Pollux. That piece is structured as three duets, followed by all the instruments playing their same parts together in a “tutti” section. While two players execute their duet, the other four instrumentalists are silent. This is done twice, symbolizing the birth of both Castor and Pollux. In this way, you get to listen to the individual parts and to the collection of all the instruments together. It’s very effective in his piece. I hope it will help mine as well.

I made up three quartets (rather than duets) out of the ensemble of 12 instruments I have been using:

1. Quartet one
   • finger Piano
   • harp
   • tuba
   • bassoon
2. Quartet two
   • baritone guitar
   • bass finger piano
   • English horn
   • flute
3. Quartet three
   • piano
   • vibraphone
   • balloon drums
   • French Horn

When each quartet plays 12 measures of 6 to 192 beats in duration, I move to the next quartet. Partch made sure each section was almost exactly two minutes in length. I’m more flexible, and allow the Drunkard Walk to determine the measure duration. Here, each measure is in a different key in the Tonality Diamond. Partch was more flexible in this area.

After the three quartets, all the instruments play together for 12 measures, then there is a repeating section where the randomness is greatly reduced. This provides a kind of climax of sorts at the end of each of the four sections.

Unlike Castor & Pollux, there is no repeating relationship between what the quartets play and what the whole ensemble plays. Instead, I use the Drunkard’s Walk Markov Chain to pick unique material at every stage.

Alpine Daisy has a Latin name of Erigeron compositus. It’s all over Western Washington from June through August. The second half of the title is taken from a quote in Faulkner’s Sound and the Fury:

And I will look down and see my murmuring bones and the deep water like wind, like a roof of wind, and after a long time they cannot distinguish even bones upon the lonely and inviolate sand.

or download here:
Alpine Daisy – Roof of Wind #24

Still a work in progress, this version includes a unison part for alto flute and English horn, and some other winds, strings, and balloon drums. Still working on the density. It’s a bit busy now.

Erigeron compositus is the latin name for Alpine Daisy. It’s all over Western Washington in late August. The second half of the title is taken from a quote in Faulkner’s Sound and the Fury:

And I will look down and see my murmuring bones and the deep water like wind, like a roof of wind, and after a long time they cannot distinguish even bones upon the lonely and inviolate sand.

or download here:
Alpine Daisy – Roof of Wind #13

This is a piece that attempts to limit the diversity of the notes chosen. There is are four lists of eight notes, four lists of eight durations, 16 chords through which to modulate, and lots of instruments that choose what to play. Most of the time I use the Drunkard’s Walk, but sometimes I attempt to further limit the degree of randomness and increase the level of repetitiveness. Still working on the balance here.

Erigeron compositus is the latin name for Alpine Daisy. It’s all over Western Washington in late August. The second half of the title is taken from a quote in Faulkner’s Sound and the Fury:

And I will look down and see my murmuring bones and the deep water like wind, like a roof of wind, and after a long time they cannot distinguish even bones upon the lonely and inviolate sand.

or download here:
Alpine Daisy – Roof of Wind #6

This is the final version of piece that makes extensive use of envelopes, trills, slides, and other tools to transform percussion instrument sounds. It’s scored for baritone guitar strings, finger piano, grand piano, harp, vibraphone, balloon drums and tuba. There is some less than random parts, and some drunkard walks.

Epilobium Angustifolium is the latin name for pink fireweed. It’s all over Western Washington in late August. The second half of the title is taken from a quote in Faulkner’s Sound and the Fury:

And I will look down and see my murmuring bones and the deep water like wind, like a roof of wind, and after a long time they cannot distinguish even bones upon the lonely and inviolate sand.

or download here:
Epilobium – Inviolate Sand #7

This is another piece that makes extensive use of envelopes to transform percussion instrument sounds. It’s scored for baritone guitar strings, finger piano, grand piano, harp, vibraphone, balloon drums and tuba. There is some less than random parts, and some drunkard walks.

Epilobium Angustifolium is the latin name for pink fireweed. It’s all over Western Washington in late August. The second half of the title is taken from a quote in Faulkner’s Sound and the Fury:

And I will look down and see my murmuring bones and the deep water like wind, like a roof of wind, and after a long time they cannot distinguish even bones upon the lonely and inviolate sand.

or download here:
Epilobium – #5

This is another piece that makes extensive use of envelopes to transform percussion instrument sounds. It’s scored for baritone guitar strings, finger piano, grand piano, harp, vibraphone, balloon drums and tuba. There is some less than random parts, and some drunkard walks.

Epilobium Angustifolium is the latin name for pink fireweed. It’s all over Western Washington in late August. The second half of the title is taken from a quote in Faulkner’s Sound and the Fury:

And I will look down and see my murmuring bones and the deep water like wind, like a roof of wind, and after a long time they cannot distinguish even bones upon the lonely and inviolate sand.

or download here:
Epilobium – #4

This is a piece that makes extensive use of envelopes to turn percussion instruments into other sounding instruments. It’s scored for baritone guitar strings, finger piano, grand piano, harp, vibraphone, and tuba.

Solidago is the latin name for the family of plants known as goldenrod. It’s all over the mountains up here in late August.

or download here:
Solidago – and Fools #4

Here’s another version that introduces much more variety of texture, longer than the previous ones due to more long measures chosen than other versions. The pre-processor chooses which measure length from the following code:

.pick-len-s32 &chor-x*.&all-32-a*. &vel.d32&w-pick-len32.
.pick-len-s48 &chor-x*.&all-48-a*. &vel.d48&w-pick-len48.
.pick-len-m64 &chor-x*.&all-64-a*. &vel.d64&w-pick-len64.
.pick-len-m96 &chor-x*.&all-96-a*. &vel.d96&w-pick-len96.
.pick-len-l128 &chor-x*.&all-128-a*. &vel.d128&w-pick-len128.
.pick-len-l192 &chor-x*.&all-192-a*. &vel.d192&w-pick-len192.
.pick-len-l256 &chor-x*.&all-256-a*. &vel.d256&w-pick-len256.
.pick-len-l384 &chor-x*.&all-384-a*. &vel.d384&w-pick-len384.
.pick-len-x512 &chor-x*.&all-512-a*. &vel.d512&w-pick-len512.
.pick-len-x768 &chor-x*.&all-768-a*. &vel.d768&w-pick-len768.

The 32 beat measures are short, and the 768 beat measures are 24 times longer, so if more longer ones are picked, the piece will last a longer time. The &chor-x*. variable chooses the key. &w-pick-lenxx. writes out to a log file the choices.
Here’s what it picked this time:

pick-len-256
pick-len-192
pick-len-256
pick-len-192
pick-len-32
pick-len-32
pick-len-32
pick-len-32
pick-len-128
pick-len-768
pick-len-32
pick-len-768
pick-len-192
pick-len-128
pick-len-96
pick-len-128
pick-len-32
pick-len-32
pick-len-32
pick-len-32
pick-len-192
pick-len-768
pick-len-512
pick-len-768
pick-len-384
pick-len-256
pick-len-384
pick-len-512

Lots of those long 768 beat measures and not so many 32 and other short measures.
On top of the Markov Chain process, there’s the chance that a note will be silent regardless of all the chains at work. In this version, the odds are as much as 68.5% that a note will sound, to as low as 31%. That leaves a more sparse landscape for much of the piece. The keys are at the edges of the list of available keys, and wrap-arounds make the changes more strange than usual.

The list of potential keys:


Cn-Maj
Ab-Maj
Fn-Maj
D+-Maj
A+-Maj
F+-Maj
E--Maj
Db-Maj
Fn-Min
A--Min
Cn-Min
D+-Min
Gn-Min
B--Min
Db-Min
Eb-Min


The choices this time:


E--maj
Db-maj
Fn-min
Db-maj
E--maj
Db-maj
Fn-min
A--min
Cn-min
D+-min
Cn-min
A--min
Fn-min
Db-maj
Fn-min
Db-maj
E--maj
Cn-min
F+-maj
A+-maj
D+-maj
Fn-maj
D+-maj
A+-maj
D+-maj
Fn-maj
D+-maj
A+-maj
D+-maj
Fn-maj

The bulk of the time it’s in Db Major, and E- Major. All at the far reaches of the diamond.


I should mention that Castilleja miniata is the latin name for the common paintbrush, responsible in part for the proliferation of colors on the mountains up here.

or download here:
Castilleja – Deep Water #15

This is a work in progress. I’ve added a beginning and ending, but still need to figure out if I should add a wind instrument solo part. It’s now scored for unison bass finger piano, long string, and tuba, plus French Horn, finger piano, piano, and baritone guitar samples. There are a lot of lists of lists of lists for the randomizer to chose from. It can choose how long to stay in a key, and whether to go up or down a list of different keys to modulate to. Here are the keys it picked in #10:

Db-min
Gn-min
D+-min
Cn-min
D+-min
Cn-min
A--min
Cn-min
D+-min
Gn-min
Db-min
Ebmin
Db-min
Ebmin
Db-min
Ebmin
Db-min
Ebmin
Cn-maj
Ab-maj
Fn-maj
Ab-maj
Cn-maj
Ab-maj
Fn-maj
Ab-maj
Cn-maj
Ab-maj
Cn-maj
Ebmin
Cn-maj


The first half of the piece is minor keys, second half major. Just the way it turned out.

The title is from two sources, as are all the titles in this album. The first is a common wildfire in the Cascades, Fragaria Virginiana, or wild strawberry. It has delightful pea sized berries which are very sweet, but tiny. The second is a word from Falkner’s Sound and the Fury.

or download here:
Fragaria – Philosophers #10

This is a work in progress. So far I just have the background parts, which consist of unison bass finger piano, long string, and tuba, plus French Horn, finger piano, piano, and baritone guitar samples. I don’t have a beginning or end, or much of a bridge to speak of. Think of it as all middle for now. More will come. I’m thinking of adding an alto flute solo melody part, but Markov Chain Drunkard Walk melodies always seem too random. I’ll have to work on that.

The title is from two sources, as are all the titles in this album. The first is a common wildfire in the Cascades, Fragaria Virginiana, or wild strawberry. It has delightful pea sized berries which are very sweet, but tiny. The second is a word from Falkner’s Sound and the Fury.

or download here:
Fragaria – Philosophers #5