Glass Transition for Solo Flute

Alex Grimes

Tongue activity

Upper extreme of ‘air window’

‘Normal’ position

Lower extreme of ‘air window’

B, C, C=, D= keysR4Tr2R3Tr1 R2

G=L4L3L2LT (natural unless otherwise speci�ed)

Trill activity marked in red

‘Roll’ Activity (Despite the appearance of straight lines and angles, actions should not be limited to homogeneous speeds. All movement should be natural and �uid, constantly accelerating and decelerating into and out of the vertices.)

Air Stream: includes size, shape, direction and intensity (Black = most intense, White = least intense)

Single tongue strike Rapid oscillating activity between two adjacent keys

Longer string of fast tonguing,for a spatially speci�ed duration

Tonguing decelerando,for a spatially speci�ed duration

Tonguing accelerando,for a spatially speci�ed duration

Short burst of tongue activity (could be a double, triple or quadruple tonguing)

Flutter tongue, for a spatially speci�ed duration

(space)(line 2)

(line 3)

(space)

Note to the performer: Glass Transition is notated spatially. Time indications (in the boxes above the notated passages) begin with the �rst ‘notch’ in each phrase. I would suggest using a stopwatch to maintain the structural integrity of the silences. The piece consists of an air stream and a mapping of the many forces that may exert some kind of impact on that air stream. It seeks to render expressive the gestures of �ute playing themselves, by emptying movement of some of the sonic referents that otherwise might trigger it. The idea is that in order for sound to be sound, movement must be movement. Before proceeding, I would suggest experimenting with extremes: extreme tight/loose embouchure, upper/lower extremes of air direction, and extremes of air speed and intensity for a given performance (these may change from performance to performance).

(Black boxes indicate a depressed key)

Programme note:

“If a melt is deformed slowly, its distorted atomic structure has time to adjust or relax; it behaves as a liquid. However, for increasingly rapid deformation… the melt crosses a threshold between liquid and solid behavior, called the glass transition. If rapid deformation takes place at viscosities above the glass transition, the melt cannot adjust... It behaves as if it were a solid, breaking as any brittle solid does if the applied stress is excessive.” -- Myron Best and Eric Christiansen, Igneous Petrology

“I propose that the interest the subject takes in his own split is bound up with that which determines it -- namely, a privileged object, which emerges from some primal separation, from some self-mutilation induced by the very approach of the real, whose name, in my algebra, is the objet a.” -- Jacques Lacan, The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis

Continuum of coverage on an open hole key(Black = completely covered, Grey = half, White = uncovered)

8”

26” 39”

1

12

D=D=

D= D=

12

D= CB

1

D=

53” 1’05”

1’16”

2

C= C=

1

D=

12

CBD=

1

D=

C=

12

D=

1

CB

D=

1

D=

2

D=

2

D=

D= C=C= C=

12

D=

b

3

1’41” 1’55”

2’06”

4

1

D= D=

21

C= C=CB CB

C

12

D=

2’33” 2’49”

2’59”

12

D=

2 2

D= C C C

1

D=

1 1 12

D=

21

2

CB C=

1

D= CB

21

D= D=

12

CB

b

5

3’21”

3’46”

4’11”

4’43”

D= C=

CB

1

D=

6

CB C= C= D=

1 12

CB

D=

12

D=CB

1 12

D=

21

D= CB C D= CB

1

D=

b

7

5’02” 5’08”

5’26” 5’37”

C

C= C=

D=

21 1

1

D=

D= CB

CB D=

1 12

D=

5’51”

6’20”

8

12 21

D=

2

CBC

1

D= D=

1

D= CB

9

6’41” 6’49”

7’06” 7’15”