Inter was composed for Ensemble Dal Niente in collaboration with the painter Brett Baker, my brother. Brett’s text pieces (displayed behind the ensemble) manipulate words by stretching out their visual presentation. Each page contains a single small, typewritten letter or punctuation mark. A word that is three letters long, for example, is spaced out over three pages. As a result, a single sentence of prose may span the length of a wall. A statement that typically appears well within one’s peripheral vision, now requires the viewer to physically move alongside the letters. It is also noteworthy that, from a distance, one cannot make out the existence of the typewritten letters. It appears to be a simple grid of blank newsprint pages. One must move within close proximity to discern the written thought.
In composing Inter, I sought to create a musically analogous scenario. The way in which I began to do this could be summed up as follows: Recitation, Dictation, Rhythmic Prolongation. I recorded myself reading aloud the opening line of Proust’s Swann’s Way. I then took rhythmic dictation from the recording. Finally, I stretched out the rhythm, making each sixteenth note a whole note. The final version forms the rhythmic framework for Inter. Just as Brett’s spacial allotment of letters impacts one’s own ability to recite, the durational augmentation similarly stretches the rhythm of the recited text beyond the periphery of one’s ear. Equally significant is the overall texture that defines much of the piece. Monolithic chords are stated and separated by varying amounts of silence. This creates a surface level analogy to Brett’s pieces in that like a single letter floating in the middle of a blank page, each sonority is given a similar degree of breathing space via silence. The idea of stretching or expanding also pertains to the harmonic content. The first two-thirds of the piece involve a unison D expanding out microtonally a whole step in either direction to C and E. A very small amount of intervallic space is covered in a generous length of time. It is important to return to the idea of physical orientation. As previously noted, the small size of each letter in the text pieces requires one to draw near. I have always been interested in a sort of “close listening,” or creating slowly evolving sound worlds that allow for and even demand that the listener zero in on the nuances of each sound.
Finally, the title Inter refers to the constant state of fluctuation that exists within the piece: deliberate microtonal movement between pitches, the slow expansion of register, the ever- changing orchestration of each chord.