Snare = Two and Four
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I’ve just written this piece for chamber orchestra and drum kit, called Snare = Two and Four.
My impetus was this competition, involving Alarm Will Sound. I wanted to submit something that was scored for their line-up, but I didn’t really feel like re-working anything, so this piece actually came together really quickly.
Here’s the score if you wanna nerd out.
It’s about 7 and a half minutes, and basically revolves around a few very basic elements:
- The humble basic rock beat, parachuted into jungles where it is very far from home.
- A 3-note melodic figure - the 1st, 2nd, and 5th scale degrees (do-re-so).
The title refers to the fact that because rock drum beats are so drilled into our psyches, they can singlehandedly redefine any rhythm. You don’t just play the snare on beats two and four - rather, wherever you play the snare IS two and four. No matter what anybody else is doing. So this piece just plays with that idea.
Also the 3-note figure - which gets shifted and stretched and mutated to form almost all of the melodic material - consists of intervals of a 2nd and a 4th, so that’s a nice little tie-in. (I feel like I should say something about the deep cosmic truths of time and pitch revealed by this alignment… but it’s really just a coincidence - I didn’t even realise it until the piece was finished).
Also, there have been lots of little techniques that I’ve noticed over years that I over-use. Things that I love the sound of and that always work - like 2:3 rhythms and the IV chord. I’ve realised that the best way to overcome this problem is to purge it - to write a piece using that technique with wild abandon, until your urge to rely on it just settles down a little. This piece was a bit like that for me, as that 1-2-5 melodic figure is something that I find myself using ALL THE TIME, as well as monstrous rock beats that enter where they don’t seem welcome and then just totally dominate. I had to get them out of my system!