Prologue (digital copy)

The first movement in a suite of four movements titled Tri Suite, Prologue is a solo piano work that explores the spectral style of composition. The idea was to treat the piece as if you are looking at a triangle horizontally. At this viewpoint, the observer sees the point closest to them in its entirety, as well as parts of the other points in the distance. This triangle will then rotate throughout the piece bringing the two distant points of the triangle into focus at different times. To achieve this effect, samples were analyzed from three different metal percussion triangles struck with a marimba mallet. This resulted in three separate frequency spectra which were then converted from frequency information to traditional pitches (rounding to the nearest half-tone). The three pitch groups were assigned to each point on the rotating triangle. The amount of each point you hear depends on how the triangle is orientated. To distinguish the different sets of pitches used, a different articulation and style were assigned to each point on the triangle as well as dynamics to match the depth in the visualization creating an acoustic spatialization effect.

The PDF dimensions are 11"x17" to facilitate easy printing. The actual piece's dimensions are 11"x14".