This week we hear from Dante De Silva about his piece Scratch Record for toy piano, muted toy piano, toy glock and toy percussion.
Thrift stores around my hometown would sell used vinyl records really cheap—20 for $2 wasn’t too uncommon. I amassed a large collection quite quickly, but these records were of questionable quality both in content and physically—most of the records were ridiculously scratched. One record, titled something similar to “Piano Moods,” consisted of track after track of arpeggiated chords within a key moving in a very predictable way with bells and drums added on some of the tracks. But because the record was scratched up, the rhythms became much more interesting than steady eighth or sixteenth notes in 4/4. Time signatures seemed to be changing constantly, but only because of the serendipitous nature of the scratches. All this chaos resulted in something more interesting than just a piano mood.
Scratch Record, scored for toy piano, muted toy piano, toy glockenspiel, toy tambourine, and toy drum, is an attempted recreation of that record using instruments similar to those used. As for the disc itself, it was used in a Rube Goldberg machine made for my physics class—it was hurled like a Frisbee across the classroom to hit something that hit something that hit the snooze button on an alarm clock. Needless to say, it, and many of its friends, died a horrible death in the name of science and a C+ grade.
This piece calls for toy piano, muted toy piano, toy glockenspiel, toy tambourine, and toy drum. Ever since the birth of my son, I have been collecting these instruments. He currently doesn’t have the glockenspiel, but I’m sure that will be remedied soon enough. I tell people who are giving these instruments as gifts that they are for my son, but now they’re going to know what their real purpose is.Slight bio:
Dante De Silva (b. 1978), a southern California native, studied composition at Humboldt State University (B.A.), UC Santa Cruz (M.A.), and UCLA (Ph. D.), where his principal teachers were David Lefkowitz, Paul Reale, David Cope, Paul Nauert. He also studied piano with Deborah Clasquin and percussion with Eugene Novotney at Humboldt State University.
His compositions have been performed by such wonderful performers as Gloria Cheng, Talea Ensemble, Ryan MacEvoy McCullough, Santa Monica Symphony Woodwind Quintet, Composer’s Inc., as well many others. He was the composer-in-residence with the Definiens Project (2005-2007) and the Tonoi Ensemble (2006-2007).
He is currently working on the second book of Drive-Thru Etudes for pianist Ryan MacEvoy McCullough, Mr. Distinguished – based on a section from Emily Post’s Etiquette, the comically dark ballet Mad, Mad Science for live electronics and percussion, and Castle Gesualdo, an opera written for the San Francisco-based Ensemble Parallèle to be premiered in early 2013. He currently lives in Los Angeles with his wife, son, and two cats.
Scratch Record, scored for toy piano, muted toy piano, toy glockenspiel, toy tambourine, and toy drum, is an attempted recreation of that record using instruments similar to those used. As for the disc itself, it was used in a Rube Goldberg machine made for my physics class—it was hurled like a Frisbee across the classroom to hit something that hit something that hit the snooze button on an alarm clock. Needless to say, it, and many of its friends, died a horrible death in the name of science and a C+ grade.
This piece calls for toy piano, muted toy piano, toy glockenspiel, toy tambourine, and toy drum. Ever since the birth of my son, I have been collecting these instruments. He currently doesn’t have the glockenspiel, but I’m sure that will be remedied soon enough. I tell people who are giving these instruments as gifts that they are for my son, but now they’re going to know what their real purpose is.Slight bio:
Dante De Silva (b. 1978), a southern California native, studied composition at Humboldt State University (B.A.), UC Santa Cruz (M.A.), and UCLA (Ph. D.), where his principal teachers were David Lefkowitz, Paul Reale, David Cope, Paul Nauert. He also studied piano with Deborah Clasquin and percussion with Eugene Novotney at Humboldt State University.
His compositions have been performed by such wonderful performers as Gloria Cheng, Talea Ensemble, Ryan MacEvoy McCullough, Santa Monica Symphony Woodwind Quintet, Composer’s Inc., as well many others. He was the composer-in-residence with the Definiens Project (2005-2007) and the Tonoi Ensemble (2006-2007).
He is currently working on the second book of Drive-Thru Etudes for pianist Ryan MacEvoy McCullough, Mr. Distinguished – based on a section from Emily Post’s Etiquette, the comically dark ballet Mad, Mad Science for live electronics and percussion, and Castle Gesualdo, an opera written for the San Francisco-based Ensemble Parallèle to be premiered in early 2013. He currently lives in Los Angeles with his wife, son, and two cats.
