music        news/events        bio        contact        recordings Fabrication 14: Lookalike 2017 piano percussion spark shaker, wah-wah tube, drum set: crash cymbal, ride cymbal, 12" tom-tom, 14" tom-tom, snare drum, bass drum, hi-hat with hi-hat tambourine duration 11' first performance: Sarah Bob and Aaron Trant New Gallery Concert Series / January 27, 2018 SCORE VIDEO—first performance PROGRAM NOTE: I typically write music with fairly involved programmatic intentions along with forms that echo or amplify them. However, I also enjoy music that simply unfolds a process or a ‘conceit’. Fabrication 14: Lookalike is a component part of a larger 32-movement cycle for various ensembles ranging from solos and duos to works for orchestra. These Fabrications explore more mechanical approaches to generating music. Each has a subtitle; a synonym of ‘fabrication’ which says something about the piece itself. A work for grand piano and drum kit has its challenges; issues of balance, for sure, but also deciding on the role of the percussion. Here the piano contrasts two distinct sets of material: a continuous blur of fast notes, initially very high and descending to the bottom of the piano as the piece continues; and jaunty, urbane music that keeps seemingly looping back on itself. The percussion echoes this to some extent by matching cymbals and metallic instruments to the high, fast piano music, and tom-toms and drums to the jaunty passages. While the piano's music is all there from the outset, percussion only gradually fills in its own, from sparse, occasional hits to full-out thundering by the close. The alternating passages are versions of each other – lookalikes – but are never duplicates. see also Fabrications