Podcast1024: Mirror Walk by Prent Rodgers

This is a piece I wrote for a combination of instruments. They include cello, violins, double bass, tuba, contrabassoon, oboe, flutes, finger piano, harp, vibraphone, french horn and many different trombones. All are subject to up and down sampling to create tiny versions of the instruments. A tenor trombone, downsampled by a few notes and then taken up an octave sounds like a sopranino trumpet. All instruments can glissando, including the harp, finger piano, oboe, flute, and cello.

There is a great deal of indeterminacy in my music. In this piece, each instrument can sometimes choose from many different alternative measures at any one time. At other times, they are more constrained. The trombone, oboe, and finger piano accompaniments had many choices, but are still constrained to a short list. Later in the song they could chose from many more alternatives. Some interesting parts showed up just because it was their time to be heard. I especially like the oom-pah-pah part at 2:45, following some trombone glissandi. I like to think of it as an improvisation, subject to control. It was created using Csound.

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