Track 1 is a piece for vocalizing guitarist and uses excerpts from Polaroid by Clark Coolidge (1975) as its libretto. This piece is an extrapolation of my previous piece for vocalizing guitarist, SYLVESTER ARIAS, which maintains a unison texture throughout and involves a significant amount of melismatic vocalizing of its libretto (Daly 2024a). The present piece shows a differentiated formal texture and is non-melismatic, i.e. primarily correlates instrument attack structure with the syllabic structure of libretto. As performed, the libretto is read-aloud and vocalized within the modal phonation register of the performer (cf. Henton 1995; Laan 1992). While vocalizing the libretto, the performer plays the guitar. Given this simultaneity of performance processes, such vocalizations can be defined as a form of multiple-goal messaging, consequently demonstrating temporally complex pause-phonation ratios, speech-onset ratios, etcetera (Greene 1995; Greene & Ravizza 1995). The pitch and intonation contour of the vocalizations is determined by a resultant mixture (of variable amplitude) of both modal phonation register of rauding voice and its prosodic indication behavior (Carver 1983; Blaauw 1983), and microtonal sliding/stepped articulation within a limited (±6-semitone) range of guitar (Daly 2024b). Excursions from the unison texture are intermittent throughout, resulting in voice or guitar without doubling. Moreover, instrumental and/or vocal deviations from the libretto are performed at varying structural levels of the text: linebreak, caesura, pagination; deviations are also permitted at any mid-line point.

Track 2 is a piece for fixed media and uses the Schoenbergian concept of 'klangfarbenmelodie' (timbral melody) as a principle for composing a contiguous sequence of timbrally distinct, albeit morphologically similar, events. This is to experiment from the question of timbral composition according to its morphological behavior, most saliently articulated by the parameters of spectra and time; the shape and order of spectral details in time (Tenney 2014). A klangfarbenmelodie is typically defined wherein "the timbral transformation of a single pitch could be perceived as equivalent to a melodic succession" (New Grove 2 2001) and "a progression of chords of varied formation not necessarily grounded in the harmonic series" (Cramer 2002). Moreover, the timbres of a klangfarbenmelodie are temporally invariant to the extent within which they do not alter an already present harmonic sonority and permit salient spectral fusion (Kursell 2013). Such temporal invariance yields the potential for the composition of intervallic operations on timbral sequences similar to those found in the pitch-class domain (Slawson 1981, 2005). The present piece constantly articulates a single klangfarbenmelodie extending over the entirety of its duration as defined by a temporally contiguous, non-overlapping sequence of morphologically similar, albeit temporally variant, events. Such events were generated by various acoustic and electronic means: foley, musical instruments, analog and digital sound synthesis.

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Carver, R. P. (1983). Is reading rate constant or flexible?. Reading Research Quarterly, 190-215.

Coolidge, C. (1975). Polaroid. New York: Adventures in Poetry.

Daly, K. (2024a). SYLVESTER ARIAS PLUS TWO [Album]. Tokyo: tokinogake.

Daly, K. (2024b). Wind Quintet I-IV, Solo [Album]. Philadelphia: Madacy Jazz.

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Tenney, J. (2014). From Scratch: Writings in Music Theory. University of Illinois Press.