ABSTRACT
Marilyn Shrude, advisor
The Fields We Watched is a fifteen-minute composition in four movements for string quartet, percussion quartet and piano. It is a tour of nighttime memories, juxtaposing themes of light and dark. The contrast between these two elements is the central theme of the work. The form of the piece is extracted from some of my original poems with each movement bearing a title that corresponds to the poem that inspired it: I. you could see every star, II. Cicadas. Fireflies., III. we built a fire, and IV. Coyotes. Doves. Each movement sonically encapsulates the behavior of light and dark in a way that is reflective of its title.
Certain sections of the piece are written without the use of conventional bar lines, time signatures, or other metric musical tools. The result is proportional time in which the sounds are presented in relation to the continuum of time rather than to a metric pulse. In these sections, the timbral qualities of the instruments become more important than the accuracy of the notated pitches and rhythms.
The percussionists are called on to work inside the lightly prepared piano, striking and bowing the strings as well as the iron frame. The use of the piano in these non-traditional ways led to the decision to include acoustic guitars as a percussion instrument. The guitar strings can be bowed with a cello bow on harmonics to produce a unique sound. This produces unusual sounds on a folk instrument, which is reflective of the sometimes-hazy recollections of my youth.
The fluidity of style, to evoke the disjointed or incomplete nature of memory, is also utilized. As The Fields We Watched shifts on the spectrum of tonality and atonality, so too do the affects of electroacoustic music, folk music, minimalism, and the language of traditional contemporary concert music. This creates a fragmented aural surface with some shards seeming clearer than others, a sonic representation of the gallery of my memories.