5,6,4,3 for solo clarinet

5,6,4,3 for solo clarinet in b flat

Composed in 2010 for clarinetist Rachael Stutzman, after an idea from Brendan A. Gallagher.

Approximate duration: 8-9'

8 pages of music, plus cover, program note, catalog. Ready to print double sided on letter size.

5,6,4,3, for solo clarinet in Bb, is structured on Dan Deacon's sound-poetry piece drinking out of cups. Musical motiv- es or gestures in 5,6,4,3 correspond to words or expressions in drinking out of cups. The opening slap-tongue, for example, stands for the opening question "who is this guy?" and its recurrence at key moments during the piece; the ascending augmented triad represents the particle "thinks he's," the mordent and pitch bend cor- responds to name-calling, and the emphatic long-short note to the synonims "not ever," "no way," "yeah, right," etc. In general, every recurring expression in the original, and the order in which they happen, is systematically mirrored by a motive in 5,6,4,3.

This structural connection leads to the same kind of low-level form, and 5,6,4,3 inherits the intriguing, and in my view extremely effective, construction of drinking out of cups: periods devoted to a particular 'topic' are peppered with cross references and recurring ideas, short self-standing motives that function as anchors ("who is this guy", "yeah, right"," "no way") and provide a solid framework for the freer material in between.

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