By the fall of 2004, I began working on Structure 1. I wanted to expand my compositional language by trying something new, so I followed the lead of composers like Roger Reynolds and began by meticulously planning out the form. The form is derived from layered orderings of the golden ratio, which is approximately .618 and can be readily found in our natural surroundings. After the form was determined I began crafting the melody. This was an intuitive process for the first section, that is, up until the point of golden ratio, and a serialized process in the second section. This work is primarily about form and melodic texture. There is almost no consideration for harmony. Structure 1 is essentially a piece for solo bass clarinet but I have included a supporting part for a synthesizer that I built in a program called Max/MSP. Max/MSP is a graphic environment for programming that is made specifically for musical applications. The synthesizer uses triangular waveforms to mimic those of the clarinet and features quadrophonic output.

click here for a RealAudio file of Structure 1

Players featured on this recording:

Cristyn Johnson - Bass Clarinet
Indah Hertanto - keyboard
Paul Turowski - MIDI controllers

Click here for a PDF version of the title page, program notes, and technical notes
Click here for a PDF version of the score

Contact composer for the Max/MSP patch needed to perform this work