Loud and soft

Molly Joyce

2020

Percussion

Loud and Soft [open instrumentation version] is an excerpted selection from a larger work for Sandbox Percussion, which explores transitions from non-pitched to pitched instruments. The excerpted selection is the beginning of the larger work, and explores an exploration of starting in timbral unity for the four primary percussion parts, and eventually forming into a more diversified sound. Therefore, this selection also involves open instrumentation in order to be open to as many percussionists as possible, and engage as many instruments and sound sources possible. With the work I wish to ask when the timbral transition occurs among various instrumental bodies; when it switches, breaks down, and leads to new possibilities. I examine how such singular yet divergent instrumental body of percussion can transform from that of non-pitch to pitch timbres collectively and individually. Exploration between such binaries correlates to my artistic focus on divergence and contrast, specifically as one with a disabled body that embodies opposites, and the endless possibilities from such. I have often pursued this compositionally, including All or Nothing for symphony band, which interrogates expectation of silence and full ensemble, as well as Head to Toe for solo percussion, which explores the transition from hand to feet playing.