When I started this piece I had the idea of exploring the full range of possibilities of working with the limited instrumentation of four snare drums. I sketched out some ideas and workshoped them with Sandbox Percussion in June of 2014. During our session they showed me how much variety was possible within a drum roll from a thick and fast roll, to a thinner roll that sounded on the edge of a discrete sequence of hits. It became my goal to explore this world within a drum roll and to write a piece that stretches out drum rolls until they are separate notes, takes rhythms and squeezes them until they become drum rolls, and pits these extremes in juxtaposition with each other. This movement is the result of playing with this idea in various subgroupings, canons, and permutation; with a surprise or two for good measure.
The second movement takes this idea into the realm of pitch with soft fast repeated notes on the vibraphone creating an almost attack-less resonance from which discrete notes gradually emerge - sometimes together and other times in rhythmic canons with various lengths of delay between entrances. In addition, the piece explores the juxtaposition of distant tonal harmonies. The pedal is held down throughout the movement creating a haze of resonance which blurs the change of harmonies and allows parts of the work to inhabit the space between them.
