Moon Music

Moon Music tries to capture the spirit of the moon’s surface. The empty, gray expanse can be heard in the piece’s ambience, the contour of the craters in the insistent arpeggios, and the beeping and whirring of the computers on satellites and space shuttles in the obsessive pulse of the sixteenth-note (though the scientific part of me feels it necessary to note that the beeping and whirring would not actually be heard on the moon; the lack of atmosphere means that there is nothing for the sound to vibrate).

The main feature of the piece is a texture, created by layering six pulses of sixteenth notes over four pulses of dotted eighth notes and layering the unit of those two figures together on top of itself. Each set of pulses decays, resulting in what sounds like an echo. The piece begins by featuring this texture outright and to its most direct extent, moving primarily between major-ninth chords and stacks of fifths. The texture then unfolds, thinning out and creating melodies spread across the ensemble. From here, the piece works its way into a loud, dramatic section, which highlights a low, chromatic line in fifths. This section creeps to a halt, allowing a slower, more lyrical section to emerge (think of the earth rising over the horizon). The music then comes to a recapitulation of sorts, with a more distinct rhythmic identity. Half the ensemble trades pairs of sixteenth notes, which, together, form a single, constant, kaleidoscopic run that persists as the piece builds to its completion.