The Voices Inside My Head
Work Overview
Instrumentation: percussion
Commission: The Bowdoin International Music Festival for its 50th Anniversary season
Premiere: August 6, 2014, Bowdoin, Maine. Performed by percussionists Luke Rinderknecht, Christina Manceor, and Tony Guarino
Duration: 15 minutes
Program Note
The Voices Inside My Head is a zany, wild piece featuring a variety of tom-toms, cymbals, glockenspiel, crotales, and small percussion instruments, as well as homemade and everyday objects such as metal salad bowls, empty soup cans, a kazoo, a saw, and newspaper. When I was approached by the Bowdoin Festival to write a work to commemorate its 50th Anniversary season, I wanted to pen a work that celebrated the creative imagination as well as the goofiness of making music.
The work that resulted acknowledged some of the voices inside my head – musical tidbits I was thinking about at the time that I wanted to share. Those voices comprise the different sections of the piece, and the musical segments collide in a fiery denouement at the end.
The sections are: “Ethereal Birdsong,” featuring birdlike calls with glassy high-pitched textures; “Parlando,” a groovy rhythmic section featuring a variety of unpitched percussion; “Voodooish,” comprising the grainy textures of maracas and tambourine; “Temple Chant,” simulating the setting of an old temple with temple blocks, musical saw, and kazoo for the chant, and tom-toms to provide rhythmic interest; an extensive ripping paper section, in which the three percussionists coordinate rhythms using sheets of newspaper; and finally, “The Beginning of The End,” in which the various sections intermix and run into each other, culminating in a schizophrenic and cacophonous final climax that brings the work to an exciting close.
Purchase This Work
This work can be purchased below, pending availability.
Errata List
Artists are welcome to contribute any errors or notes for this work on our collaborative errata list.