Slider

https://soundcloud.com/bill-105/sets/core-of-the-coalman-two-live-sets-2015/s-kmc0X?si=78de905ec2024af8a069ff830dcdead0&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

Slider

solo viola, duration variable 2015

Slider like its cousins is part of the folio of new works for solo viola that I have been developing and testing in live performances. Unlike its cousins Streaming, and Appel Latch, it uses no "ground motive", but is rather a grid of gestures which interact with one another over an incessantly repeated parabolic bowing action. This bowing action creates a kind of arpeggio, but although it remains more or less consistent throughout the piece, variation in the low to high order of heard pitches is varied and at times rendered ambiguous by slow glissandos in fingered notes and harmonics. At the same time a slightly variable rhythmic oscillation in a different tempo to the bowed arpeggio is created as the right hand moves the bow position between extreme ponticello and tasto bowing. This creates a recurring shimmering timbre as harmonics are gradually emphasized and suppressed over the changing stream of steady and sliding pitches. This piece, like the others presented here, is still undergoing revision and certain aspects, such as optimal tempo for the work remain to be decided, pending further testing.

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Performed extensively throughout the UK and Ireland between 2014-2015.