A minimalist work for solo guitar and pad. 

The piece sets up a stable polyrhythm in prime ratios. At any point you can hear 2/4, 3/4, 5/4 or 7/4 phrasing over the 11/4 drone. Harmonically it wanders through hundreds of diatonic harmonies, in so doing setting up temporary keys that eventually collapse back to E Minor. It never repeats, rhythmically or harmonically, yet stays essentially static and self-similar. It is intentionally disorienting, having no large scale structure. It is highly organised on every level, yet may superficially sound random.

Phase in E Minor

A short piece for three percussionists.

25 years ago I was learning my snare drum rudiments. The paradiddle is a semiquaver sitcking that goes Lrll Rlrr. Giving a sticking for the accented crotchets of LRLRLRLR. I suggested to my teacher that you could 'nest' these, so the accented crotchets were LRLL RLRR. Unfortunately when expanded, this gives a cumbersome triple sticking, which at the time I could not play without it being noticeable. The solution was to use the first rhythmic inversion (Lrrl Rllr). The result is a neat little sticking that turns out to be useful in improvisation.

This piece revisits that idea in a more formal context, nesting the paradiddles four layers deep, and playing over a constant inverted paradiddle drone, with additional rhythmic accents played on the triangle and bass drum. Other than the bass drum, the instruments used are not explicit in the score, the selection here were my personal choice.

Ian D Millington

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