solo percussion and electronics compositions by and performed by Ron Coulter

In 1937, John Cage wrote: “Percussion music is a contemporary transition from keyboard-influenced music to the all-sound music of the future.” Nearly eighty years later, it is obvious that percussion music is not simply a transitory medium but a viable and potent mode of art making in itself. The caveat is that percussion music must maintain its integrity of identity, its essence, and avoid the sway of convention. That is to say that, it must remain the all-sound music of the future and not become the some-sound music of the day. How to do this? Percussion music must exemplify exploration, inclusion, and radical idiosyncrasy rather than the prevailing standardization, commodification, and idolatry of tradition. It must do this even in such inherently contradictory contexts as composition, recording, and academia.

Such exemplary ideals underlain the practices of the pioneering percussionist-composer-performers, Henry Cowell, Lou Harrison, and John Cage, beginning in the mid-1930s and resulted in them creating and inspiring a remarkable body of work between 1935 and 1942. Although this all-sound-music-of-the-future percussion music formed in, and epitomized, the forward-thinking experimentalism of the 1930s, banal, academicism quickly encroached percussion music as early as 1942 in Carlos Chavez’s spurious percussion composition “Toccata” with its conventional instrumentation and performance techniques, and its poverty of rhythmic, textural, and timbrel materials. This encroachment has since continued and become normative with the assimilation of percussion music into the academy and modern-day concert halls.

The music on this recording represents an extension of those musical ideals and explorations begun in the 1930s. It deals in the immediacy and inherence of materials at hand, reflexivity to location and temporality, while avoiding convention, association, and the cults of technocracy and virtuosi. This music strives for the do-it-yourself, be-yourself, overturn-the-system, sound-centered aesthetics of true American Experimentalism.

Zzzerrrrrangatang! (2015) is composed solo for four elephant bells and snare drum. The elephant bells are graduated in size and thusly in the pitches they produce. The snare drum’s playing surface (i.e. drum head) is coated with rosin just as a violinist’s bow. The sound in this composition is generated primarily by friction—the rubbing of the elephant bells on the rosined drum head—just as a violinist rubs their bow on the violin’s strings. Due to the physical nature of the elephant bells and snare drum head, the sounds generated by the performer are, to a degree, indeterminate (i.e. unpredictable). The composition is notated with graphic and text notation, rather than conventional music notation. Built into the notation schema and interpretation of the work is the opportunity for parametrically controlled improvisation, or rather in-the-moment reflexive interactivity between performer and objects. The title is derived from the composition’s inspiration, Michael Zerang, who is a creative, Chicago-based percussionist that often utilizes friction in his own work.

Vibe Suite, I-IV (2008-ongoing) for vibraphone and electronics is an ongoing series of works for vibraphone; the series concept was borrowed from Stuart Saunders Smith’s wonderful series of Links for vibraphone. The musical content of Vibe Suite is probably much less profound than the individual titles would suggest, but the aesthetic aim is existential transcendence and the sublime via simplicity. Each movement is a reflection and composed as needed; the series will continue for as long as needed. The suite can be performed in a variety of ways: selected movements, in its entirety, solo, ensemble, with or without electronics, and so on.

System No. 1 (2015) is composed for snare drum, almglocken, 10.25” aluminum pot lid, clamshell, clock coil, miniature radio, and requires the following implements: two small chains, bass bow, and a bamboo skewer. The work is notated using text, graphic notation, and some conventional music notation. The notation demands reflexive interactivity between performer and objects throughout the interpretation of the work. This reflexive interactivity is a required feature of the work, as many of the sounds are produced through the automation of the objects, which once set in motion, move and sound on their own accord; this occurs with the almglocken, aluminum pot lid, clamshell, and clock coil. The title comes from the performative spectacle of the work, which presents to the viewer like the management of a system of moving objects. The management of the objects is not passive but rather an active and progressively more determinate role as the work develops.

Seven Thoughts for Glockenspiel (2015) is scored for glockenspiel, two rin, three elephant bells, two magic wands, and nine graduated telephone bells, along with a variety of implements; some of the instruments are also utilized as implements. The work was inspired by the compositions and improvisations of percussionist, Jean-Charles François, especially his work for snare drum, Fragments II. The complexity of “noise” and its juxtaposition with “the sublime” drives many of my compositions. The longtime challenge of realizing this aesthetic using a conventional, pitched percussion instrument like the glockenspiel came to fruition in this work and will be further developed in future compositions.

Beautiful Waste (2015-2016) is composed for 5 brake drums, cassette tape, and electronics; it requires the following implements: two medium rubber mallets, wire brush, bamboo skewer, two bass bows. The title of the work refers to the brake drum-as musical instrument and it has a subtextual relationship (realized after the fact) to the narrative content in the second movement.

Movement one, Life is a Grindstone, is an exploration of repetition and subtle variation, monotony and minor difference, the day to day. The title will be self explanatory. The harsh, unforgiving electronic processing will be familiar.

The title of movement two, Poem 456 (Bukowski), was inspired by Stuart Saunders Smith’s lovely composition, Poems I, II, III for five brake drums, cowbell, and narrator. Smith’s work also provided the realization that brake drums could be a viable sound source for a solo composition. The sample of Charles Bukowski reading his poem “Man Mowing the Lawn” followed by what appears to be an excerpt of an interview or conversation was found on a homemade, unmarked, cassette mixtape containing numerous excerpts of poets reading poetry and conversing; the original source is unknown.

Movement three, Gamelan Shtyle, applies a hand-dampening technique taken from gamelan performance practice and applies it to the brake drums. Additionally the extreme contrasts heard in Balinese gamelan music are reflected in this composition. The center of the movement features a blues-inspired cadenza, à la Barney Childs.

Boxes of Music (2008) is scored for amplified tam tam, eleven music boxes, two very thin splash cymbals, two coffee cans, and electronics. The title lacks creativity, but is descriptive. The piece is a miniature sound-mass composition inspired by the so-called sound-mass compositions by composers such as György Ligeti, Iannis Xenakis, and others. The arch form of the work is easily identifiable and is built simply from the accumulation and then dissipation of sounds, the deconstruction and then re-emergence of familiar melodies. This is process music.