Words on the Street

Listen to the work here! (Mvt.s 1 and 2 Only)

(This collection includes works for woodwind trio, percussion duo, open instrumentation, and violin/percussion/piano trio.)

Words on the Street is a collection of studies in the compositional innovations of 20th century modernist composers, originally composed as assignments for a course in 20th century composition with Dr. Joseph Klein, completed while I was an undergraduate student at the University of North Texas. Each of the four studies in the collection explores a different route of innovation from the last 100 years of composition.

As is perhaps clear, the title of this collection and the titles of the etudes are based on a pun; each etude is a suffix used in street names in America, i. e. “words on the street (signs)” as opposed to the more common idiom “word on the street”. The name for each etude is based on what musical inspiration arose from the facet of composition being studied, as follows:

I. “Avenue” is a trio for clarinet, oboe, and bassoon, and a study in pitch-class sets, the entire etude being based on three different prime forms. The title comes from the different avenues of tonality the three voices slide through.

II. “Lane” is a duo for two percussionists, and a study in rhythm and meter, the title based on the notion of “changing lanes” reflected in the use of tuplets to create

ebbing and flowing musical speeds throughout.

III. “Circle” is an open-form work exploring indeterminacy and graphic notation, realized as a musical circle traversed by the performers, in short cells that are improvised realizations of letters of the alphabet.

IV. “Court” is a trio for violin, piano and percussion which explores extended techniques and proportional notation, named after the court-music associations of the chosen instrumental combination, and some of the piece’s tonalities.