3 Diatonic Studies - Piano

1. Chasing Golberg (2004)

Chasing Goldberg was written in response to a commission to compose a variation based on the Aria of Bach's Goldberg Variations.  Each measure employs pitch classes from the equivalent measure in the Bach.  Instead of straight binary repeats, each repeat is a canon on the original statement.

2. Cyclic Descent (2009)

Cyclic Descent juxtaposes the diatonic set with its pentatonic complement and follows diatonic sequences at multiple structural levels, successively transposed down a scale step.  Contrasting ideas gradually merge, and by a circuitous route the music ends up where it began.

3. Scalar Rhythms (2009)

Scalar Rhythms is built on a parallel between scales and rhythms.  If you count up the major diatonic scale in semitones, the pattern is 2-2-1-2-2-2-1.  Similarly, the pattern for the pentatonic scale is 2-2-3-2-3; for the major triad it is 4-3-5.  West African drumming often employs these asymmetrical patterns as durational values.  Scalar Rhythms is constructed entirely, and in canonic fashion, from these isomorphisms between scales and rhythms.