Pulses (2018)
(for piano trio)

Although we might think of pulse as being a purely rhythmic element, musical pitches are, in fact, also pulsations of differing frequency. If you have ever heard a really low organ note, for example, you might even feel the sound beating. This Piano Trio uses such acoustic elements to suggests the material heard in the opening with high sounds being repeated in faster frequencies than middle and lower groups which pulsate at less frequent durations: this is heard in a series of repeated, poly-tonal chordal fragments in the opening. From these juxtaposed fragments, I derived a series of scalic and chordal patterns used throughout the piece which act in combination with the sorts of rhythmic ratios set up at the beginning.

The idea of pulse is also used in a structural sense, in that the underlying sense of 'beat' shifts from fast to slow in a series of metric modulations (where one rhythmic value equals another one in a new tempo). Here the sense of strict, rhythmic pulse heard in the opening seems to give way to a more lyrical approach with cello and violin solos searching for more expressive and personal approach. A playful piano solo with pizzicato string accompaniment marks the beginning of a slow return to a more 'metered' sense of pulse and upon a significant arrival, back to the original fast tempo. Transformed versions of material from the first third of the piece begin to return, climbing to an ever-accelerating high climax and then release to an echo of the opening 'pulsed' fragments.