This is a piece written for a piano prepared in the John Cage method and a six-octave kalimba. I don’t think many six-octave kalimba actually exist but it works in the virtual world and that’s good enough for me. The work was sequenced in 2008 using the prepared piano from the ViOne virtual instrument collection and from the Soniccoture Mbira multi-sampled instrument. I bought these for a film score and used this composition as an exercise. Aside from the technical facts, the work is mostly rhythmic and structural but also plays with shifts in and balancing of timbre.

A long time ago I read a quote regarding a composer, either Satie or another European of a similar time-period. The quote referred to music which was “written for the bottom of (his) desk drawer.” I’ve looked online but only found one reference and it is a person stating “I’m not a desk drawer composer.” Well…. I guess I am because this has sat in my virtual desk drawer for years. Time to let it out.