Ballad of the Silver-Tongued Pantomime

Listen to the work here!
 
Ballad of the Silver-Tongued Pantomime is a groove-centric work for percussion quartet, with the following instrumentation:
Percussion 1: Desk Bells (1 Diatonic Octave), 3 Wood Blocks, Piccolo Snare Drum
Percussion 2: Marimba, Log Drum (4 Pitches), Shaker
Percussion 3: Chimes, 2 Bongos, 3 Chinese Tom-Toms
Percussion 4: Glockenspiel, Splash Cymbal, Hi-Hat, Kick Drum
This work utilizes the contrast between driving and complex rhythms in the drums and a pastoral melody presented by keyboard instruments to paint an image of my own struggles to communicate as a neurodivergent person. I have often found that my inner “silver tongue” – the eloquent ramblings that I can dispense at length in my own head or while talking to myself – often doesn’t translate to conversations with other people. Whether this is a subconsciously learned practice of revising speech in my head before I speak, for fear of being misunderstood or alienated, or simply the impending sense of compulsory social rules that suffocate the words before they leave my head, I often find that my speech is only polished when no one is watching. Over the course of the piece, the drum and melodic material undergo a process of unification, imagining that I might be able to learn over time to truly, and without fear of judgment, speak my mind.
 
This work was written for the debut concert, entitled “(retro)Active”, of Kismet
Percussion: Baryl Brandt, Chase Dunaway, Trevor Landreth, and Daisy Waters.