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On Sleep and Waking
- University of Illinois Press
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on sleep and waking When Ron George approached me to compose a percussion work for him, he offered to design and build instruments capable of being tuned as I would like, and sent me recordings of his own work. I liked best the American gamelan, so we decided to work together on a gamelan composition. I wanted to do a work that would reflect the Partch-like dichotomy of Otonality and Utonality, so I decided to base the tuning on the fourth through the sixteenth partials of the overtone series of A and the exact mirror of this. Tuned pipes,tuned gongs,tuned drums,and tuned cymbals would be joined with timpani and assorted random-pitched instruments. There would be a solo part with supporting parts. There are three movements. In the first a scale consisting of the fourth through the eighth partials of the overtones and their inversion was employed. In the second the eighth through the sixteenth overtone partials alternate with the inversion of these.In the third movement the combination of all these pitches is heard for the first time. The rhythmic structure is also based upon the proportions 4:5:6:7. The mirror-like pitch structure suggested to me the ancient alchemical formula “As above,so below.” In life there are life-oriented forces and deathoriented ones. Only in the juxtaposing and balancing of these forces can the opposites be reconciled. The title Sleep and Waking refers to these opposed forces. ...