Fission is a new piece which I’ve just finished. It’s for 3 performers, using unspecified (though melody instruments would probably work best) instrumentation. I ask the performers to listen for specific sonic events before starting, continuing, or ending their material, making the piece a sort of chain reaction.

Click here for the piece’s page, including a link to the score packet and, soon, recordings.

From the score description:

All performers should start at approximately the same time, reading from left to right. Pitches and durations are given in a proportional format (with a reference line for pitch), and performers should interpret accordingly. There is no set time-scale, though experience proves that an upbeat performance will be more successful than one at a slower pace. At the beginning and distributed throughout the gestures are square boxes containing one or more circles. The location of the circle(s) indicates an event which the player should listen for before beginning their next gesture. The beginning of the next gesture should correspond as closely as possible with the ending of the previous, listened-for, gesture.

The thing I enjoy most about this piece, besides that it’s a hell of a lot of fun to play, is the way it ends. Due to the combination of the cueing system I’ve designed and the way that performers get out of sync, the piece comes grinding to a halt before the end of the page, with the players stuck on their last material. The players switch pages and start again. It’s quick, can be VERY short, and encourages a strategic approach to the material that (for me) rewards repeated performance.

Some images from a piece I’ve just finished, currently untitled.

The location of the circle(s) indicates an event which the player should listen for before beginning their next gesture. The beginning of the next gesture should correspond as closely as possible with the ending of the previous, listened-for, gesture. Circle placement is read as follows: the placement left to right inside the box indicates duration of the event, left being a short event, right being a long event. Bottom to top indicates pitch, low to high. For example, a circle in the bottom left corner of a box indicates a short, low event, and a circle in the upper right corner indicates a high, long event.

“Inevitably, there will come a situation in which all three performers are waiting for events which will not occur. This is the desired outcome of the piece, and should not be avoided or overcome through creative misinterpretation of heard events or environmental sounds. When this point is reached, the performers should continue sounding their current events until it is certain that the piece can progress no further, at least 30 seconds.”