Traps

Programme notes

I was delighted when Justin DeHart suggested I write a piece for solo for drum kit –  in 2019 he and his colleagues in the Los Angeles Percussion Quartet had, with the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra, given an enthralling rendition of my concerto Gyre (Ghosts with Accents). As a colleague at the University of Canterbury/Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha, I had also witnessed his outstanding performances in a wide range of musical contexts, e.g. as a kit drummer with student groups, as multi-percussionist in strictly notated music, as a free improviser, as a tabla player, and as a member of the UC Gamelan Ensemble.

When writing Traps I bore in mind Justin’s air of calm, quiet authority and composure that I had experienced during performances, while also allowing occasional outbursts of “indiscipline” to erupt.

While the drum kit brings with it substantial baggage from jazz and rock music, I didn’t set out to draw on those traditions directly. As things turned out, those bodies of work are alluded to here and there – there’s only so much one can do about music absorbed over decades by osmosis. But the starting point was a consideration of the drum set itself and the patterns that four limbs could trace on it.

I decided on a more or less standard drum kit, with the main difference being the addition of another hi-hat and the near-symmetrical disposition of the kit, with left and right floor and rack toms, ride cymbals and jing cymbals (or cup chimes). A microsnare was paired with the standard snare drum, both placed centrally. The symmetry was broken by a single sizzle cymbal to the player’s right. This near-symmetrical arrangement was chosen to emphasize the independent trajectories taken by each side of the body – particularly each arm across the instruments of the kit.

Over the course of the piece, there is a “snaring” of all the drums – increasing their rattling resonances – starting with the microsnare and ending with the addition of a seed-pod rattle to the bass drum. Along the journey there is also a general diffusion of the attack – the piece starts with snare drum sticks then moves to Blastiks and eventually brushes. There’s also a gradual move from rapid, even pulses to increasingly irregular rhythms and polyrhythms – some notated precisely, others allowing more freedom on the part of the player.

Commissioned with funding from Creative New Zealand