String Quartet ('Drumming' Experiments)

First exercise in bringing drum transcription to a non-drum medium -- later morphed into 'Drumming 1' and 'Drumming 2'.

I wrote this piece for Freund's Orchestration class my Junior year.

This piece is a mashup of:

A Marching Mizzou Drumline exercise they used to do when I was in the group my first two years of college.
Carter Beauford's drum solo intro on "#36", Live at Red Rocks (95).
Two Step by Dave Matthews Band.
Kanye West's "Flashing Lights"

Although I cut out #2 above and made it its own piece called Drumming 1 later. That section (and later piece) is difficult and unintuitive to perform in a string quartet arrangement. But the exercise of breaking up something complicated (like a nuanced drum solo) and spreading it around an ensemble is something that I explored for years.

Began sketching this piece at Francie and Clay's apartment close to campus during that major snow storm in early 2011. Wrote up about 5 pages of rhythmic outline before engraving. I remember trying to make the beginning harmonies follow Kanye West's "Flashing Lights," but it's not too obvious!