In the Key of K

In grad school I wrote this piece, around 2006-07. The whole concept was to make atonal music using “five” as often as possible for inspiration.

The first movement takes five note tone clusters (also known in music theory as secundal chords) played as you would normally play one note in a scale. Take five white keys next to each other on the piano and strike them all at the same time. Using those five note clusters I made two melody lines that counterpoint each other.

The second movement combines my love of tabletop drumming with piano. Really, I like drumming anywhere, anytime, anyplace–hated by all who are enjoying a quiet room. 😺🥁The x notes are supposed to be slapped on the piano wood–wherever the performer wants or wherever they think sounds good. As long the audience can hear the accented pattern. I toyed with the idea of the performer wearing a ring or something to strike the wood but the hand has worked well live. Gradually, the accent pattern on the wood is replaced by five note clusters. The first section culminates with the accent pattern being fully played by the tone clusters and is followed by more of a slow dissonant march in the second section. Then the whole thing is repeat at the sign! I just finished mastering a midi version with electric piano but I had to overlay percussion sounds to make the wood notes.

Movement three is a dissonant dream about overtones. When this was performed live for the first time this was the fifth movement–only because it was the last one I wrote. It is the least interesting and easiest to play of the five. The five note quartal/quintal chords are spaced farther apart so the dissonance is not very harsh. The meter was written as 5/4 but that means nothing here–the idea is to hold the sustain pedal down the whole time and never move to the next chord until the performer hears the overtones begin to decay. When performed on a really nice sounding acoustic piano with really good sustain and overtones, it’s really quite lovely. You just have to remember this piece is not about rhythm or momentum, it’s about long drawn-out chords that move on forever.

The fourth movement is probably my favorite of the bunch. It is definitely the most ugly. Rather then taking the secundal clusters like the first two movements, this section uses only half-step chromatic clusters. To keep it from being too jarring, the attack is often one group of three and then one group of two per line. It’s in 6/8 with a two count for the left hand but the right hand is often in 3/4 with a three count (3 count plus a 2 count is 5–check measure 12 for the first obvious time this happens). It’s a fun piece for parties–everyone will be dancing! 😼

The final movement is not atonal. It’s a five voice fugue in 5/8 time that exclusively uses a pentatonic scale except in the development (the only time half steps occur). This was originally the third movement but only because it was the third one I wrote. In retrospect, it makes sense to put this at the end as a palette cleanser.

In time, I will try to replace the midi files with either better midi files or acoustic piano sounds. Realistically, it will probably be a plugin through my recording software via an electric piano–there are lots of really good plugins now that mimic acoustic sounds really well. Better still, if some enterprising pianist wants to play these and record them, go for it! I would love to hear a new interpretation of them!

Sheet music:
Pentahedrons I
Pentahedrons II
Pentahedrons III
Pentahedrons IV
Pentahedrons V