simulacrum for two to five players Designate a pitch compass over which all instruments are able to produce a slow, continuous, timbrally consistent glissando. This compass should be one octave or larger. Instruments should be timbrally similar. One player is designated reference and plays a slow ascending glissando at a constant speed (as slowly as can be reliably, evenly executed) from bottom to top of the designated pitch compass. All other players determine their pitches in two ways: • Matching: attempt to match the reference player’s pitch as closely as possible. • Divergence: beginning from a pitch very near to the reference pitch, gradually make a very slight increase or decrease to the glissando’s speed, and then maintain this new speed. To transition back into matching the reference player’s pitch, gradually increase or decrease the glissando’s speed as needed. At no time during transitions between matching and divergence should glissando speeds change abruptly. For each player, each successive divergence should change, relative to the previous divergence, in one or more of the following ways: • increase duration • shorten time interval between successive divergences • increase distinctness of divergent glissando speed from reference glissando speed Each player should diverge above and below the reference player in roughly equal proportion. In divergences, glissando speeds may vary freely provided that no player’s sound becomes wholly distinct from ensemble’s massed sound, and that no glissando slows down into a complete immobility (i.e. a sustained tone). All players (excepting the reference player) begin and end the piece matching, and must enact at least two divergences during a realization of the piece. Players determine independently when they will change between matching and divergence. For each player individually, matching should occupy more duration than divergence within the piece as a whole; avoid obvious durational patterning in alternating between matching and divergence. Begin and end the piece in exact rhythmic unison. All players play throughout, and should always be equal in volume. The overall texture should be extremely smooth and continuous.
Colin Tucker July 2010/rev. December 2015 This piece is part of the work-series maps of disintegration and forgetfulness