Start
I’ve been having fun digging into Hannah Lash’s Start, her contribution to Unsnared Drum. Here’s the opening:
The piece uses a kind of developing variation, with different rhythmic patterns highlighted by timbral shifts using different techniques, sticks, and beating spots. Like a lot of Hannah’s music, Start is full of energy and incessant forward motion.
Last summer, Hannah and I brainstormed some ideas. Cameras in the throat! Speech rhythms! New notational paradigms!
As you might have noticed, her completed piece includes none of these, but it does include a lot of Hannah’s experiences with her drum. I sent her a drum and the people at Vic Firth provided a set of mallets and sticks. It turns out that being a phenomenal harpist is the perfect preparation for tuning snare drums and for developing the kind of control we percussionists covet.
A Facetime-based tuning session…
I’m going to premiere Start on my faculty November 4th here at KU. Come out, or tune into the live stream!