12.) Attraction July 25, 2013

MP3    PDF SCORE

I was fooling around with some Messiaen modes trying to find ideas this week, when I noticed that a certain transposition of his third mode had a couple of mirror points on the piano.  The pitches of this mode are [D Eb F Gb G A Bb B Db D].  If one starts this scale on D and plays it in contrary motion, the right hand ascending while the left hand descends, the intervals are symmetrical and the hands mirror each other.  Later I discovered that certain transpositions of all Messiaen's modes actually have mirror points on the keyboard.

I thought it would be fun to compose a piece in which the hands mirror each other throughout.  It was interesting because often times I heard something I liked for one hand, but wasn't crazy about what the mirroring voice had to do.  I had to either change my original idea, or accept it and move on.   About halfway through composition process, I remembered that I haven't done much with non-retrogradable rhythms for awhile, and I thought that they would work out quite poetically with the mirroring idea.  So I simply used measure 15 as a mirror point and then retrograded the rhythm of the first 14 measures.  This also made for some interesting phrasing, especially in combination with the mirroring pitch structures.

I naturally gravitated toward one of few mirrored structures in the scale that had a strong tonality, that of G-flat major.  As it shaped up, it seemed that the piece became movement to and from G-flat major.  I enjoyed the experiment and wouldn't be surprised if I revisited the mirror idea before this project is concluded.

It feels good to be working at home again with my usual instrument and equipment.