bristle (2011) 4'

bristle was written as a gift for my friend, Robert Black, to play with his bass students at the Hartt School of Music.

Every year another talented group of students show up in Hartford to study with Robert – the numbers change every year. In order to make a piece that he could use over and over again I needed to make something that all his students could play, regardless of their numbers or experience. My solution, in bristle, was to make a duet of two parts, almost identical.

bristle can be played simply as a duet of two skilled bassists; ideally, with more bassists playing along they would be divided between those two primary parts. My original thought was that since student ensembles sometimes contain players at different levels I would add two optional parts that move more slowly, making it possible for a beginning student to play one of the optional parts and then ‘graduate’ to the harder parts in subsequent performances. After making the music this way I realized that all possible versions – for the two parts only, for the two parts plus one or both of the optional parts – have their unique charms. I am looking forward to hearing the music in all its potential incarnations.

bristle should last about three and a half minutes. All notes sound one octave lower than written.