Ripple

Instrumentation: electric guitar quartet + percussion quartet

Duration: 15′

Program note:

I am very attracted to the idea that sound is a mutable experience – that sounds all around us are ever changing, morphing into new sounds, mixing with other sounds so that they are re-contextualized. The mutable experience of sound is transfixed into our psyche whether the sound exists in the natural world or in the artifice of music composition. This particular aspect is what makes our sonic experiences in the contemporary art world rich, diverse, unexpected, and pleasantly surprising. It is also this aspect that helps us make deep connections between music and the visual arts.

Ripple transports the listener to an ephemeral world, delicate yet intricate. Sounds are constantly on the edge of disappearing, beginning as crystallized entities but then veering off into the depths. The work dares the listener to pin down its sonic objects into easily digestible units of form or style. What the ear is left with is the moment-to-moment palpating of rhythmic fragments and disembodied timbre. This, to me, is what the listener takes with her after experiencing the work – transportation to a new, unarticulated sound world.

This work was commissioned by Dither Guitar Quartet and Mantra Percussion.