Landscape Portrait (Solo Prepared Vibraphone)

Landscape Portrait is about the limitations that we impose on nature by trying to understand it through a human lens. In the music, clamps on individual vibraphone bars mute notes, creating order out of what would otherwise be a tangled, resonant mess. These restrictions increasingly come into conflict with the vibraphone itself, blocking elements of the music until the performer removes them.

Genre: Prepared Vibraphone (4-mallet) | # of Players: 1
Series: N/A
Level: Medium Advanced | Duration: 5:50

Instrumentation
Vibraphone (3-octave)
8 Clothespins (or other removable clips/clamps)

Program Notes
Landscape Portrait is about the limitations that we impose on nature by trying to understand it through a human lens. In the music, clamps on individual vibraphone bars mute notes, creating order out of what would otherwise be a tangled, resonant mess. These restrictions increasingly come into conflict with the vibraphone itself, blocking elements of the music until the performer removes them. Although it may be counterintuitive, Landscape Portrait argues against trying to make sense out of that which we cannot understand, instead appreciating things for what they are.

– L.R.K.

Performed by John Wayne Duke