Scored for Solo Timpani with Electronic Music

Completed in 2006
Duration: 19 minutes

Premiered February, 2006 in Bloomington, Indiana
Eric Guinivan, Timpani

Program Note
 In writing Distance I set out to capture both the powerful and aggressive character of the timpani as well as the softer, subtle qualities of the instrument that seem to be often underutilized in much modern music.  The slower, free-flowing sections of the piece highlight the dramatically expressive power of the timpani through carefully shaped rolls, crescendos, and glissandos that attempt to create abstract imagery of varying distances.  The opening of the piece captures this environment as the timpani initiates a mysterious dialogue with the accompaniment that gradually deepens in intensity and activity as it fluctuates between sounds that are both near are far away. 

This dialogue eventually leads to the introduction of a simple, quiet pulse that is quickly adopted by the timpani, setting into action a steady, slowly-evolving rhythmic process.  It is here that the concept of Distance is applied much more literally to the music over the course of the pulse’s development, we are gradually introduced to new sounds or events that begin rhythmically far apart from each other and are gradually brought closer together.  Thus the rhythm finds itself in a continual pattern of condensing until it can contract no further and essentially collapses upon itself in a tumultuous, loud crescendo.

The listener is left in a somewhat suspended state until the dialogue between performer and accompaniment introduced at the beginning of the piece subtly resumes.  Several of the opening musical statements appear again, now in a distant, other-worldly atmosphere. 

When it seems like the music might be beginning to draw to a close, a new quicker pulse suddenly enters, throwing the elaborate rhythmic scheme into action again.  Distance is now developed and created in reverse, however, as events now expand on a large scale and at a much quicker pace.  Several times the pulse becomes completely overwhelmed by loud and incessant drumming, culminating in a series of frighteningly loud hammer-blows that continue to expand further and further from each other far beyond the distance at which they were initially situated.

After a prolonged silence, the initial dialogue resumes again from its very beginning, but is brought to a conclusion by a chant-like drone that until now has been resting in the background.  The timpani repeat a final fleeting gesture as the drone slowly ushers the music into the distance

Distance was produced in IU’s Center for Electronic and Computer Music under the direction of Professors John Gibson and Jeffrey Hass.  Almost all of the sounds you hear in the accompaniment are derived from sampled percussion instruments modified and reconstructed through the programs Absynth, Spektral Delay, and Digital Performer.