One / (very s/low d/own) Breath
The latency issues experienced with most current group online internet sessions makes a lot of music difficult to deal with because of the time delays involved. This piece composed in 2012 should be suitable for online group rehearsals where it is not necessary to play in time with each other. 'One / (very s/low d/own) Breath' has a very simple presentation from which everyone plays. The note names are read from left to right, top to bottom. Each performer plays notes, low in their register, each for a duration between 8 and 16 seconds. The notes are played at concert pitch. A recording is on Spotify, and the (very small) score is available for download free from IMSLP.
The 'B' is a B natural - but - it may be interesting to try B flat instead, and also - those groups with transposing instruments could experiment with playing the notes without transposing. Singers could sing using any syllables or sing the note names. Untuned percussion players could also experiment - perhaps finding an unpitched sustained sound for each of the seven notes, or sympathetic ad lib, or perhaps assemble a series of tuned water-filled bottles to blow across.
Every couple of days I'll describe others of my pieces that feature uncoordinated playing, moving previous pieces into the Blog, and will try to flag pieces by other composers that could work for online playing groups where latency is otherwise a problem. For example 'Twilight Music' (2001) by Hugh Shrapnel.
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