Crooked

For clarinet, bass clarinet, trumpet, guitar, piano, and drums

Duration: 6 minutes
Tangled Yarn Ensemble, conducted by the composer
Premiered at Broad Art Center, UCLA - 2008

Listen to Excerpt 

Crooked uses roughly equal amounts of correlative and procedural notations. The score makes extensive use of the Uroboros symbol to indicate various kinds of repetitive procedures, and flow of information is indicated by means of arrows connecting various symbols. Color in this score is used to convey information concerning relative degrees of activity and the balance of new and used material. The rotation speed and opacity of the Uroboros are used to communicate tempo and density, respectively.

The trumpet and piano parts seen in Example 1 are coordinated through the use of a little ball of light that moves from left to right along each line of notation. In the clarinet and bass clarinet parts coordination is achieved by stretching note heads, and then snapping to subsequent notes. Each of these two methods of coordinating material has its own feel, and also communicates information concerning desired timbral qualities. To me, the trumpet/keyboard notation suggests a somewhat stringent tone, while the clarinet/bass clarinet notation implies a relatively mellow sound. However, I did not discuss this with performers, preferring to let them find their own way.

This score features several types of Uroboros symbols. The clarinet/bass clarinet duet in Example 2 is of the clockwise-turning type, indicating that new material is to be improvised. Since the image seems to be spiraling inward, it signifies that the performer progressively employs less material. This can mean progressively fewer notes, less rhythmic diversity, or some other musical parameter of the performer’s choice.

The color of the duet images is a deep red, indicating a high degree of activity. The texture of the images is somewhat spiky, implying a rather harsh timbre. They are spinning in sync, signifying that their tempi are aligned.

The arrow indicates that musical information is flowing from the duet into the ensemble. Because of the clockwise orientation of the Uroboros, the ensemble improvises new material, but since the arrow is coming into the ensemble, it is new material based on the clarinet/bass clarinet duet material. Because the ensemble’s Uroboros is eating its tail, its material should be limited in some way. The size of the ensemble Uroboros, in this case, does not signify a louder dynamic; it simply differentiates ensemble from solo or duet. The ensemble Uroboros is a semi-transparent light blue, designating an inactive sparse field. The key signature indicates that the performers use the following pitch-class collections (The order does not imply a central pitch-class): a, b, c, d, e, f, g, and ab, bb, c, d, eb, f, g.

The snapshot in Example 3 shows information flowing from soloist to ensemble. Both are rotating in a counterclockwise direction, signifying repeating patterns that become progressively simpler.

Example 4 adds another symbol, that of the Sun, in the trumpet part. Although the circle in this notation always signifies a long held note, the added decoration communicates something about the kind of sound I am looking for. This elaboration of the symbol should not only convey a message concerning the timbre of this long tone, but should also convey something about the attitude that the performer should take toward the sound. By “attitude” I mean the feeling that one has toward a sound. Put very simply, I love certain sounds and I loathe certain sounds. There are myriad other indescribable feelings I have toward different sounds. Because I cannot describe these feelings, I try to convey them through notation. It is the potential of communicating on several levels at once that I find so exciting about working in this medium.

In Example 5 we find an example of the size being utilized to indicate the preferred range of an event. The spinning Uroboros symbols in the clarinet and bass clarinet parts have been collapsed to the size of one or two pitches, while the size of the trumpet’s symbol indicates that the performer is to improvise within the range of f to the e a seventh above. Here the mp is given to clarify that the size is not related to dynamics.

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