Indefinite Pitch

Indefinite Pitch was written in 2012 specifically so that I could perform it for that year’s open Percussion section of the South Australian Band Championships. It is intentionally silly, and just challenging enough for it not to have been a total cop-out. If you're looking for a fun, challenging piece to show off a solo percussionist, this is the piece for you!

Instrumentation

Solo Concert Bass Drum
Piano Accompaniment

Programme Notes

Indefinite Pitch is a very serious piece of music for very serious percussionists, who wish to showcase the Concert Bass Drum (a very serious instrument.)

The piece is vaguely structured in five parts. It begins bright and cheerful as the Bass Drum lightly frolics through fields of happiness and wonder, occasionally pausing to feel the wind in its hair, and the warm sun on its skin.

Suddenly - what is that? A threat of some sort? The Bass Drum takes flight towards safety - or so it thinks.

Alas, it has instead run directly into the danger! Tragedy strikes! No one knows precisely what the tragedy is, but it’s very sad indeed. In a sudden outburst of pain, the Bass Drum cries out in the form of a cadenza. And then...

Sadness. Bleak, bitter, irrefutable sadness. The Bass Drum is but a shell of its former self. How can it go on? It seems as though it will never recover.

Then, as suddenly and inexplicably as the danger appeared, the Bass Drum recovers. Everything is fine again. Although the Bass Drum is forever changed by this ordeal, it has spontaneously come to terms with it.

The clouds have parted the sun is shining once again, and as the piece ends, we watch as the Bass Drum skips merrily towards the horizon.