Abstracts Earth and Environmental Sciences

Walk as Though to Wake the Earth

by Colin Kemper

Walk as though to wake the earth is a single-movement composition for alto flute, B flat clarinet, and two digital instruments selected from the native instrument library of Logic, Apple’s digital audio workstation. The digital instruments are a fixed media component for the composition. Restriction plays a significant role; chief among such constraints is that the piece only calls for two analog instruments from the instrumental family that have similar ranges. The outermost registers of these instruments are probed for the purpose of producing an expansive collection of timbres and textures. Restriction is further realized in the limitation of digital instruments. An in-depth examination of register is extended to these instruments and for the same purposes.Structurally, the composition is comprised of three primary sections. Following the second, an extended cadenza precedes a return to a further-developed form of the expositional musical materials. Foundational devices of musical development are featured in the work: augmentation and diminution of established rhythmic figures, fragmentation of melodic and rhythmic motives, guided evolution of intervals, and multiple forms of inversion