Seedling (2019)
Instrumentation: Indian harmonium
Electronics: Yes
Duration: 14'
Commissioned for Jacob Greenberg, by Winsome Brown through First Page
PURCHASE
SCORE SAMPLE
Music should be accessible. If cost is an obstacle, please fill out the form below:
NOTES:
The sound of brass reeds evokes for me the harmonica and concertina my father played when I was a child, the accordion, and the bandoneon - the sonic baggage of pasts both real and imagined. These are compact, sturdy instruments built for travel, hitching rides like stowaway seeds amongst the treasured belongings of their migrating hosts. The brilliantly compact Indian harmonium, itself an adaptation of the colonial British organ, pops its keys and bellows out of its own briefcase.
Like its many histories, the sustain of a reed can suggest many instruments, many musics. It is the onset of the note that identifies it most clearly as the instrument it is. In writing “Seedling” for Indian harmonium, I wished to avoid that grounding attack, and let the reeds drift unencumbered.
To further distinguish the bellows from the valves, I devised a way of installing midi sensors beneath the keys, allowing the harmonium’s keyboard to act as a set of valves opening bandpass filters on white noise generated by the sea. This source is ever-changing - as are the waves created by the bellows for the reeds, and the tiny insistent waves generated by the harmonium’s tremolo stop - and ever the same, like the harmonium drones created by special stops, by key weights, and ultimately by sine tones.
“Seedling” was written for Jacob Greenberg, and commissioned in honor of Covell Brown through ICE's First Page, with lead support from Winsome Brown.
