Commissioned by Oslo Messingkvintett, for 2 trumpets, horn, tenor trombone and bass trombone, 15 minutes duration. The piece will be finished in spring of 2023, and will be another addition to the Alignment line of compositions.
In this work I am fascinated by the psychoacoustic phenomenon combination tones, extra tones that comes when two instruments sound together. This is quite significant in brass instruments. I started by analyzing the combination tones that would come from a few simple, just intonated intervals, and built from there.
The just intonation aspect (and trombone-heavy line-up) is the reason why you can see the dreaded instrument slide trumpet in the photo. Yes, I have one, and it’s embarrasing. But very useful for figuring out the just intonated trombone positions.
Anyway, when I tested my calculations with the ensemble in real life, surprisingly beautiful chords came out. Maybe the most fascinating about these chords were their ambiguity. They had a richness to them.
