Some thoughts regarding
the recent work of Sr. Bolaño
Written in 2022 for trumpet quartet and tape (7 minutes)
This piece was written in 24 hours as part of an annual 24|24 event at UNT where composers have 24 hours to write a piece and performers have 24 hours to learn the piece, concluding in a massive concert.
The electronic “tape” part of this piece was created by having my Drone Bot listen to the midi of the trumpet parts and produce drones to harmonize with it. The Drone Bot is a MAX patch I created that will produce sinewave drones based off what you’re doing (what it is listening to) and will play with you live. In this particular instance, I played the midi to the Drone Bot and recorded several instances of the patch operating, selecting my favorite bits and then adding/removing tones in a DAW later.
The piece is really quite simple: harmony, voice leading, some microtones, all come together to produce what Tenney might have called a single clang.
The title of this piece is rather arbitrary, but I will say that Roberto Bolaño is my favorite author. Although he passed in 2003, I only began reading his work in 2022 and have absolutely fallen in love with his voice and his oblique way of storytelling. This piece doesn’t work like that (see my Codex Vivere from 2020/2021), but I’m still super into his work and needed to come up with a title pretty quickly…