Peter McNamara-Composer
  • Home
  • About
  • Discography
  • Catalogue
  • Sideband
  • Contact

Voltage

Album Recording (Spotify)
Claire Edwardes-percussion (from Sideband)
Buy the Recording (Sideband) | Buy the Score

Programme Note

Voltage is a work that possesses influences from the domain of electronic music and is scored for a concise percussion setup including bass drum, 2 tom toms and wood/temple block.  Its rhythmic material is based predominantly on the number 240 and/or divisions of this number.  Much of the work also possesses an almost super-human quality.

The first section is an example of the work’s influence from the electronic domain.  Various complex cross-rhythms between the drums and wood/temple block that relate to the rhythmic divisions used in the second section appear, resulting in a collage of different delay speeds.  These gestures are developed by speeding-up and slowing-down either one or both parts of a cross-rhythm, colour changes between soft or hard mallets and distorting the natural dynamic envelope of the gesture.

The second section is very mechanical and uses a variety of polyrhythms.  Each sub-section is either 120, 180 or 240 events in length, and uses progressively smaller rhythmic divisions emphasised by either hard or soft mallet strikes.  This creates a machine-like effect, and culminates in a series of rapid passages that are almost super-human.

Reviews of this work

Andrew Aronowicz, Limelight Magazine - Sideband: Visceral performances embrace the shock of the Australian new
Peter Leung, classikON - Vast range of tone colours in Sideband’s first CD
Gwen Bennett, The Music Trust - Sideband.  Music by Coelho, Gill, Kos, McNamara and Williams

Performances of this work

25 Aug 2018: Sideband: Primordial, Halfback Books and Records, featuring Brad Gill.
21 Aug 2016: Sideband: Light Wells, Sydney Conservatorium of Music, featuring Brad Gill.
All manuscript images are photographs taken of a variety of original scores written by Peter McNamara.  Text and images may not be reproduced without permission.

​
© Peter McNamara 2013-21
Home
About
Discography
Catalogue
Sideband

Contact