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This is a work in progress…

I’ve added a marimba part and modified the vibraphone a bit. More to come later.

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Just finger piano and vibraphone for now.

I finished the CD for the RPM challenge on Sunday. Here are the pieces all in one place for those interested, in MP3 format. Liner notes here.

1. Approaching the Bergschrund at Night
2. Walking Down Blue Glacier
3. At the Terminus of the Blue
4. The Rocks of Glacier Creek
5. Elk Lake Dancing
6. Slow Dance

I finished the CD for the RPM challenge on Sunday. Here are the pieces all in one place for those interested, in FLAC format. I’ll only be able to keep these up for a short while because of the size. Liner notes here.

1. Approaching the Bergschrund at Night
2. Walking Down Blue Glacier
3. At the Terminus of the Blue
4. The Rocks of Glacier Creek
5. Elk Lake Dancing
6. Slow Dance
7. Elk Lake Dancing – take two

All the FLAC’s can be downloaded by right mouse clicking and choosing “save as”, or some such browser specific command. They all end in the extension of .FLA, so they may need to be renamed as .FLAC once they are downloaded.

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This is the final piece I was able to finish for the RPM Challenge. Written for the same instruments as the others: clarinet, oboe, cello, finger piano, harp, marimba, vibraphone. I would have liked to include some Elk calls, but I ran out of time. The harmony is based on the otonolity to the 15 limit, modulating down a scale derived from the utonality series. It’s the same set of changes as my 2002 piece Mirror Walk.

16:9
8:5
16:11
4:3
8:7
1:1
16:9

This is a descending scale, but the voicings from one chord to the next are done so that it sounds like it’s going up, when it actually goes down.

The rhythm is based on dividing 30 beats into one of two general ways: either 5 6 beat quarter notes or 7 4 beat quarter notes and a 2 beat eighth note, with the latter quarter notes slower than the former. 5 * 6 = 30 and 7 * 4 + 2 = 30. It’s kind of like a 3 against 4, except the 3 has a 5:4 feel to it, and the 4 has a lopsided samba feel.

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Trying out some material for a dance piece. This is just the mallet instruments for now. I’m finding ways to divide up 30 beats. More later.

Elk Lake is a small alpine lake above Glacier Creek, before it empties into the Hoh River, with a nice small campground.

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This is another take of this piece. It’s scored for environmental sounds and a small ensemble of skilled microtonalists. The environmental sounds are recordings of a gentle waterfall and some birds typically found at the confluence of Glacier Creek and the Hoh River or thereabouts. The birds are the Hermit Thrush, the Black Throated Blue Warbler, the Stellar’s Jay, the Hairy Woodpecker, the Pileated Woodpecker, and the Warbling Vireo.

The small ensemble of skilled microtonalists include clarinet, oboe, vibraphone, marimba, finger piano, cello, and harp. They are asked to accurately play the 53 TET scale, and also carefully slide up a set number of steps, for example, by 8 or 10 steps (approximating the ratios of 11:10 or 8:7 respectively). These guys are amazing in their flexibility and accuracy. I ask them to pick the chord inversion they want, and then slide up or down by a predetermined amount. My vibraphone player has perfected the art of bending his aluminum bars just the right amount to descend by a 6:7 (12 steps in 53-TET).

As always, this music is fake but accurate. Here is some of the coding for the sliding chords. The following is put through my Csound preprocessor to generate the necessary Csound code.

.slid-min3-u-a135 t+0&gls11:10. t+14&gls10:9. t+17&gls8:7.
.slid-min3-u-a351 o-1t+14&gls10:9. t+17&gls8:7. t+22&gls11:10.
.slid-min3-u-a513 o-1t+31&gls8:7. t+22&gls11:10. t+14&gls10:9.
.slid-min3-d-a531 o+1t+31&gls8:9. t-17&gls10:11. t-14&gls6:7.
.slid-min3-d-a153 o+1t+0&gls6:7. t-22&gls8:9. t-17&gls10:11.
.slid-min3-d-a315 t+14&gls10:11. t-14&gls6:7. t-22&gls8:9.
.slid-min3-u-b247 t+7&gls11:10. t+15&gls9:8. t+19&gls7:6.
.slid-min3-u-b472 o-1t+22&gls9:8. t+19&gls7:6. t+19&gls11:10.
.slid-min3-u-b724 o-1t+41&gls7:6. t+19&gls11:10. t+15&gls9:8.
.slid-min3-d-b274 o+1t+7&gls10:11. t-19&gls7:8. t-19&gls9:10.
.slid-min3-d-b427 o+1t+22&gls9:10. t-15&gls10:11. t-19&gls7:8.
.slid-min3-d-b742 t+41&gls7:8. t-19&gls9:10. t-15&gls10:11.

To call the chord, I just have to write code for each instrument, like this:

.mari-16-min-1f &mari.&key.e16w0d0h17&slid-min3-d-a*.d16
.mari-16-min-1g &mari.&key.e16w0d0h17&slid-min3-d-b*.d16

Then I call it when I want it to play like this:

&mari-16-min-1*.

The asterisk is a “don’t care” character. This way, I can create several different note strings and let the computer pick the one it wants him to play at any given moment. Notice that the -a chords are the utonality triad to the 5 limit, and the -b are the higher overtones to the 11 limit. The chord slides from one to the other.

The &gls11:10. variables invoke a Csound function table that slides a note up or down over its duration by a very specific amount and timing. I basically multiply a note by a table of 256 values from 1 to a number larger or smaller than 1. Here is the relevant Csound code for a function table that slides a note to which it is applied by an 8:7. 8 divided by 7 is 1.14285714.

;f# step start at 1, stay there for 48 of the 256 steps
; move to 1.14285714 over 128 steps
; stay there for 80 of the 256 steps.
f324 0 256 -7 1 48 1 128 1.14285714 80 1.14285714 ; 8:7 g23 up 10


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The water moves quickly as it descends from the higher elevations. It tends to form eddies where the rocks block the flow. The water swirls to fill the gaps. Later, the rocks fall away and the water flows unimpeded down the valley. Soon, the rocks pile up and slow the water again.

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This is a work in progress…

This one is in 9: 5/4 + 4/4. There is a later section that shifts to some other combinations. This is a sketch for now.

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I was able to get the crew to come in early for one more take. We went out to the headwaters of Glacier Creek, where it moves down slope past a forest of high pines. Omar couldn’t lug his tuba up this high, and the vibes player said no, but the clarinet, oboe, marimba, finger piano, and harp were included. Celebrate the otonality with triademonium to the 11 limit.

Note: I had to load a second copy due to a name conflict. Sorry!