WILFRIDO TERRAZAS

THE

SPLIT

TRILOGY

(2011-12)

SPLIT (JOURNEY)

2011

WILFRIDO TERRAZAS

for Split Toy Piano (2 players)

for Jane Benson

-Each player chooses a note. Repeat this note enough times.

-Through trills and tremolos, gradually expand your pitch-space, departing from your

original note, until you have reached the maximum available.

-Stay there enough time.

-Always using tremolos and trills, gradually reduce your pitch-space, until you are once

again left with one note, although a different one from the one you started with.

-Repeat this note enough times to end the piece.

-Use accelerandos and ritardandos ad lib. all throughout the piece.

-Don’t play “together”. Instead, aim for a parallel coexistence in time and space.

ACA, Florida, October 29th, 2011.

SPLIT (REALM)

2012

WILFRIDO TERRAZAS

for Solo Drummer

for Darío Bernal Villegas

-Reduce your drum set to its absolute minimum.

-Play as actively and intensely as you can with that minimum. Explore it. Always aim for the maximum timbral variety and dynamic contrast.

-Whenever you’re ready (once you’ve reached a certain peak of activity, for instance) add another element or instrument to your drum set. Try to keep the same level of activity you reached immediately before, but distributed equally between the two instruments, i.e. play the two instruments as if they were one.

-Whenever you’re ready, add a third element or instrument and repeat the process. Keep going in this fashion until you expand to the entire drum set.

-Once you’re playing on the entire drum set, stay there for a while. Always try to maintain the same level of activity, but equally distributed on all instruments. Play all instruments as if they were one. Never finish exploring them.

-Stop abruptly to finish the piece, once you’ve realized that you and the drum set are one.

-You can conceive the piece as a big crescendo, a big diminuendo, or in any other dynamic shape. But the important metaphor is that you conceive the drum set (and your body) as a territory in which you need to gradually expand your knowledge and being. In this territory, the musical activity will spread itself during the piece like a swarm of bees.

Mexico City, May 12th, 2012.

SPLIT (BEING)

2012

WILFRIDO TERRAZAS

for any wind player

for Wendy Terrazas

-Have the audience breathe with you. Very slowly. Breathe in through nose, breathe out

through mouth. Develop a very paused and calm rhythm. Have them listen attentively to

their own breathing.

-Have them achieve a unison feeling, at least for a short while. (Another option is to split

the audience in two groups: Group A breathe in while Group B breathe out and so on).

-Breathe with audience for a while.

-When you feel everyone is ready, pick up your instrument and play a long, sustained, rich

sound. Use circular breathing. Stay there for at least two minutes. Let this sound convey

everything you are.

-The audience should listen to your sound as if coming from their own breathing. Explain

this to them beforehand.

-When you feel enough time has gone by, stop playing and return to breathe with the

audience.

-Listen to their breathing as if coming from your own.

-The piece ends when the last person(s) breathing slowly breathe out their last breath

with listening intention.

Metaxata, Kefalonia, Greece, August 15th-16th, 2012.