Introduction to 5! for Percussion
The piece is solo percussionist and any 5 pieces of percussion, percussion being defined in the loosest possible sense, it could be for a set of tom toms, a set of temple blocks or a bunch of scrap metal or some chopsticks and random bits from around the kitchen. This decision is up to the performer, it is also possible to use the formal structure of the piece as a guide for changes in instrumentation, for example section A may be junk metal, section B pots and pans and section C maybe a set of tom toms. Many other elements are left up to the performer such as the dynamic structure and the placement of types of articulations and attacks to be used also the tempo of the piece and the relative tempi between the three sections. This is an open piece in many ways, the only things that are defined are the durations and the sequence of the basic events. Almost everything else is determined by the performer. At a tempo of crotchet = 107 then the duration is about 14mins but again this is variable. It is also to perform any one section from the 3 sections as an individual “bleeding chunk” as each section is a self contained cycle of the 120 possible permutations of 5.
The composition is a complete study in the possible combinations of five elements, the elements in this case being 5 pieces of percussion or more precisely small short sequences made from five elements. For example element A maybe a bass drum followed by a high tom, element B may be two strikes of a conga followed by a floor tom etc. The piece then unfolds each of the possible combinations of these short sequences and maps them on to a predefined rhythmic structure. The rhythms used are designed to be asymmetrical and to allow phasing relationships and isorhythmic structures to emerge.
This piece is based on a sequence of 5 elements which are alternated in every possible way. If we have three elements: A, B and C there are 3 x 2 x 1 = 6 ways that those three elements can be arranged. ABC ACB BAC BCA CAB CBA How many different ways can 5 things be arranged? -
5 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 1 = 120 This is the also know as five factorial, in mathematical notation 5! hence the title.
The piece is in a simple tertiary form A B A1 form:
A constant 16th notes – B more complex rhythmic structure – A’ simple rhythmic structure
This is an example of a piece where the construction of the score is done in very methodical controlled way while a great deal of liberty is given in the interpretation and execution of this “fixed” score. The score acts as a template on which the performer can unleash their creative and interpretive selves. As there is no repetition in the piece, it is quite challenging to play at first. It is allowed to augment the piece by playing and repeating sub units such as playing each 4 bars three times or some such modification. This would work well with a bleeding chunk version.
Download Score
http://rob.goto10.org/5/score-2009-10-13.pdf
Video
This is a TiMidity++ realisation with a quick and dirty video made in Cinelerra until i get a human to record and film.
5! for percussion from rob canning on Vimeo.
More Detailed Analysis
From a point of analytical interest some of this is most clearly expressed in the code, I will briefly give an overview here of the key parts of the code:
Each of the 3 rhythmic templates are marked in the code beneath a line like this:
my $formatA = my $formatB = my $formatC =
The code which follows this is a combination of Lilypond code describing the music in terms of notation and variables to be filled. There are rhythmic values in numeric notation such as a semi-quaver is 16 a dotted quaver is 8. etc. also in the code you will see dollar signs which are variables, these will be filled in by the program i have coded by the permutations of the aforementioned units. For example, here are some of the durations with place holders (variables) for the unfolding of the permutations:
%1\$s16-> %2\$s16 %3\$s16 %4\$s16 %5\$s16 %6\$s16-> %7\$s16 %8\$s16
These units I described briefly earlier are defined in the code in sections that look like this:
#definition of 5 elements for permutation my @frag1 = qw(tomfl tomfl); my @frag2 = qw(tomh tomh); my @n = ([@frag1], ["toml"], ["tomml"], ["tommh"], [@frag2]);
It is seen here that i use tom tom names for the elements, this is purely for the code and does not mean that the piece must be performed by tom toms.
In the first section, section A, there are five elements 3 of which are single drum attacks and two of which are pairs or attacks.
my @frag1 = qw(tomfl tomfl); my @frag2 = qw(tomh tomh);
["toml"], ["tomml"], ["tommh"]
In each of the structural units the rhythmic template is different as too are the constituents of the elements.
View Code
The piece is coded in the Perl Programming language because it is a scripting language that has powerful string manipulating abilities.
This is my first exercise using the Perl language so it is likely to be ugly code – it does however work for me which is the main concern.
sgen.pl is where the meat of the code lives
https://code.goto10.org/svn/rob/the_five_compositions/5forpercussion/