A fascinating musical world to explore

Sandbox Percussion: And That One Too

I've been thinking a lot lately about musical arrangements and re-compositions. My last review, of songs by Meredith Monk, is definitely in the latter category. This new album by Sandbox Percussion begins with an arrangement that completely transforms the sound of the piece, but whose basic character remains very much the same.

Here's the original version of the second of Andy Akiho's Six Haikus, written for trumpet, trombone, bass clarinet, and baritone voice, and performed by the contemporary music group Loadbang in 2011.




And here is the same piece, arranged in 2019 by Akiho and Sandbox Percussion for tuned ceramic bowls, metal pipes, wooden slats, a metal pot lid, a glass bottle, and a piece of scrap metal.




The performance video is very cool, because it helps to illustrate the clever structure of Akiho's piece. Ian Rosenbaum explains:

This work has no text, but it observes the 5-7-5 form of a haiku musically. The rhythmic structure of each measure consists of a group of 5 sixteenth notes, then a group of 7, then another group of 5. The larger metric structure is also based on the 5-7-5 of a haiku - the material is played 5 times, then 7 times, and then 5 again. When one returns to the beginning of the cycle again, each player in turn leaves their pitched instrument and moves to an unpitched sound, until by the end, all that is left is a dense hocket among the four players.

That's a lot to include in a piece of music of less than four minutes! The great thing is that the more you watch and listen, the more you get out of it.

The other three pieces are equally interesting, though all written originally for percussion ensemble. Music for Percussion Quartet, by David Crowell, includes complex polyrhythms, expressing two different musical landscapes: a busy urban one, and a serene countryside. Amy Beth Kirsten's she is a myth comes out of her 2017 project QUIXOTE, a fully-staged work about literature and reality, love and chivalry. Kirsten herself sings each of the three voices in the piece, with more fabulous sounds from Sandbox Percussion. Finally, with not only that one but that one & that too, Thomas Kotcheff provides a kind of Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, except for the whole range of percussion instruments played by the four members of Sandbox Percussion. Each movement highlights a different category: wooden instruments, drums, & pitched metal instruments, and each features an individual virtuoso member of the group.

A fascinating musical world to explore!