Spherical Music (1985)
Eve Beglarian
PUBLISHER: Self-distributed (Composer Website)
RECORDINGS: Spherical Music, Jane Boxall (Intermediate Swing)
RANGE: 5.0 octaves
DURATION: 7:10
MOVEMENTS: Single movement
TYPE OF ACCOMPANIMENT: Fixed
MUSICAL OVERVIEW: The work is comprised of twelve separate lines—each recorded by the performer. The performer creates the solo part by stringing together measures selected from the twelve separate parts and muting those measures from the prerecorded tracks. This flexibility allows for many performance variations. The parts are tightly interwoven and the music is rhythmically dense at times. There are several sections in the work, and each section is characterized by different rhythmic elements. Transitions between the sections occur quickly and rather abruptly.
ACCOMPANIMENT OVERVIEW: I recommend recording each part in its entirety and saving the audio file for future use (then you can easily reimagine your solo part at any time without having to rerecord the parts). Using a digital audio program, the sections that will be performed live can be deleted from the tracks. For example, in Audacity, selecting the portion of a track to remove and using the command to “Generate Silence” will overdub silence on the selected region without affecting any timing of the track. Then a final mix can be compressed down to a single stereo track.
TECHNIQUE OVERVIEW: Each part can be performed with two or four mallets. Selecting the mallets for the solo part depends on what the performer has created. If four mallets are used, the following stroke types are necessary: SI and SIA. The writing of each part focuses on a single melodic line. If the performer combines parts and performs two at once, the technical difficulty would increase substantially and require SI, SIA, DV, and DL strokes.