Hubert Howe

Piano, fixed media

Composer's note: While the background structure of the composition is 12-tone equal tempered, the spectra prolonging each of the notes is inharmonic, such that each partial above the fundamental is 11/24 of the frequency of a harmonic spectrum. This represents a frequency-shifted spectrum of about a minor sixth up. Each partial furthermore has its own amplitude envelope, so that there is a continuous shifting of the amplitudes emphasizing a different component over each portion of the duration, thus producing a continuously shifting timbre. The overall form of the piece is palindromic, representing a crescendo to a climax in the middle of the piece followed by a diminuendo to the ending, with a few softer interludes interspersed in the overall hairpin shape. In the middle of the piece, the partials change from the continuously shifting timbres to being attacked separately in a similarly shifting pattern. When the piano plays long notes, which is for most of the piece, the notes should be heard as the "fundamental" of the inharmonic spectrum, but sometimes in the middle sections the piano plays some of the spectral components, but only those which actually articulate tempered pitches, as the piano obviously cannot play inharmonic spectra. The composition was composed in 2019, and the electronic fixed media part was generated by the Csound program.