Unrepeatable Contour of Breath

Written in 2022 for contrabass and piano (16 minutes)

I wish I could remember more of what I was thinking about while working on this piece. I know for sure that writing for the contrabass is one of the more difficult things for me to do. It’s odd, but as a bassist myself, I always feel weirdly intimidated by the instrument and feel like I can’t really get a grip on what I want do with it. Maybe that’s because I’m not a very good bassist - maybe it’s because I’m not a very good composer - but it’s hard for me to get a grip on what I want to do with the instrument outside of a drones, free improv, classical ensemble playing, etc, and more into a notated context.

I’m really not a big fan of “recital pieces” -  you know exactly the ones I’m talking about: the ones that are for whatever instrument and piano, that are used to showcase the instrument or the performer in some sort of academic setting. The kind of shit that you hear on what’s-their-name’s junior recital full of pieces that are either standard for their instrument or pieces that you will immediately forget afterwards. This is the one thing I was definitely trying to avoid with this piece. Rather, I wanted to try to write a piece that worked well for both instruments without being overly intimidated by my own experience playing those recital pieces as a young bassist; now in a position of composer and pianist writing for one of my best friends, Conner.

Listening again to this piece, there is a sense of few things that are standing out in my mind: breath (obviously) but in a sense of pacing. There is a balance here between gesture and stasis; drone and motion; an ebb and flow between the two instruments. There is an odd balance that is highlighted here between the justly tuned bass and the equal temperament of the piano that, in its deepest registers don’t “clash” so much as they pulse and flow against one another. You might say this piece is coming and going of clouds, but to me it sounds more like a coming and going of a tide - although not regular or continuous, but something with depth and weight - perhaps like a breeze across a canyon, or what waves might sound like deep in an cave (if they worked like that).