2024 . . . Meditative sound environment.
Colorado’s Black Canyon of the Gunnison lies between narrow, tall rock cliffs of metamorphic Precambrian gneiss and schist formed 1.7 billion years ago crosscut by lighter-colored streaks of pegmatite. Due to the canyon’s depth and narrow width, its river falls from the Continental Divide in continual shadows.
This piece takes musical counterpoint from The Book of Canons. An ancient form of Rumpelstiltskin magic, canon spins complex counterpoint out of a single melodic subject that is echoed after some delay by one or more answering lines of identical rhythmic values and melodic shape (possibly transposed).
The art of canon pervades much of my 21st-century writing, a challenging yet stimulating and gratifying approach to texture weaving with continuous strands of material. The Book of Canons collects excerpts from these works, showing each canon’s subject as well as points and pitch levels of answers, worked out in three voices.
Thomas Clark - composer / digital artist 