Resonating Frequencies

Description

Resonating Frequencies is conceived as a laboratory for sound, an investigation into how pitch, rhythm, and time interact when familiar musical rules are stretched and reexamined. Subtitled a Tone Experiment for Wind Band, the work treats the ensemble not as a single blended voice, but as a collection of individual sound sources whose interactions reveal both order and instability. Like any true experiment, the piece embraces both success and failure, allowing moments of clarity to exist alongside tension, dissonance, and unpredictability.

A central focus of the work is the harmonic series itself. Rather than presenting it abstractly, the composer assigns different partials of the series to individual members of the ensemble, effectively allowing the band to become the harmonic spectrum. These pitches do not change simultaneously; instead, each shift is offset by four counts, creating a constantly evolving sonority where harmony is never static. At times, the result is strikingly resonant and pure; at others, the spacing produces roughness and instability, highlighting the fragile balance between consonance and dissonance inherent in the overtone system.

Rhythm plays an equally experimental role. Strange and shifting time signatures disrupt any sense of predictable meter, while percussion is used sparingly, ensuring that pulse is implied rather than enforced. Much of the rhythmic complexity arises from the practice of copying and pasting melodic material and displacing it in time. In one notable section, a single melody is layered against itself twice, each entrance separated by only one beat, creating a shimmering sense of motion and echo. Elsewhere, two melodies written with entirely different rhythmic constructions are revealed to sound nearly identical, questioning how perception can override notation.

The fast section pushes this idea to its extreme, with melodic entries offset at seemingly random intervals. What appears chaotic on the surface gradually reveals an underlying coherence, as overlapping lines align and misalign in unexpected ways. The result is a dense, energetic texture that exemplifies the work’s experimental spirit.

Ultimately, Resonating Frequencies is less about arriving at definitive answers than about listening closely to the process itself. Through harmonic exploration, temporal displacement, and controlled unpredictability, the piece invites performers and listeners alike to experience sound as a dynamic system—one where resonance emerges not despite experimentation, but because of it.