Polygraph
Instrumentation:
Percussion solo for 5 tom-toms
Duration: 4‘30”
World Premiere: November 18 2019 (Melbourne, Australia)
US Premiere: April 16 2022 (Bloomington, Indiana)
Focusing a police interrogation lamp onto tuplets and polyrhythms, this piece centers around patterns of 3 over 5, 4 over 5, and 5 over 4, and demands the musician perform a number of potentially incriminating grooves and ‘melodies’ across 5 tom-toms. This polyrhythmic lie detector test not only investigates the accuracy of the performer’s tuplets, but also resembles the irregular breathing and heartrate measured by polygraphs. While I cannot confirm that this piece is able to validate truths from lies, I can assure members of the general public that it’s worth listening out for the music behind the bars.
Program notes: