Exercises 15-18 (1975)

Exercises 15-18 were originally written to be used for a Merce Cunningham dance event. Each one is different. Exercise 15 is a keyboard piece of which one can make an instrumental version. Exercise 16 is a through-composed duet (instruments unspecified). Exercise 17 is a trombone solo (other arrangements possible). Exercise 18 is a quartet, free in instrumentation, and allowing (for the only time in all of the Exercises 1-18) free repetition of individual phrases, independently by individual players. Exercise 15 and 16 use in some way material drawn from the tune to which the song "There Once was a Union Maid" was set in the twenties by Woodie Guthrie. Exercise 17 uses a song tune of my own. Exercise 18 draws loosely on the hobo song "Hallelujah! I'm a Bum." 

From the viewpoint of composing, the Exercises (and especially Exercises 1-14) are the result of efforts to make it possible to write with an at once free and focused immediacy analogous to a kind of instrumental improvisation, the written result of which would in turn allow the performers to play in that same spirit, with the added dimension of focusing their performance through the presence (sound) of others performing concurrently.