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Genre: Cajon
# of Players: 1-2
Level: Medium | Duration: 15:00
Publisher: C. Alan Publications | Copyright: 2011
Download mp3 | Click on images to left for score sample
Outside the Box is a collection of four progressive solos and one duet for cajon. Each piece is intended to develop comfort with a variety of sounds and to assist the performer in creating a vocabulary of idiomatic and creative grooves for the instrument. Use the Instrument Key and Diagram on the facing page as a reference, but strive to familiarize yourself with your instrument, what your hands and feet can uniquely create, and enjoy playing grooves and making music "outside the box”!
Genre: Cajon | # of Players: 1-2
Level: Medium | Duration: 15:00
Instrumentation
Cajon
2 Cajons needed for Slide Rule
Program Notes
Introduction
Outside the Box is a collection of four progressive solos and one duet for cajon. Each piece is intended to develop comfort with a variety of sounds and to assist the performer in creating a vocabulary of idiomatic and creative grooves for the instrument. Use the Instrument Key and Diagram on the facing page as a reference, but strive to familiarize yourself with your instrument, what your hands and feet can uniquely create, and enjoy playing grooves and making music "outside the box”!
The Tunes
Pocket Full of Rocks - Josh Gottry
If you think of it the right way, the cajon is a little bit like a portable drumset that doubles as a chair. Many of the standard rock and funk grooves work very well on a cajon, especially with an acoustic guitar or two. This introductory piece in the collection is designed to use the instrument in just that way – combining rock, hip-hop, funk, and shuffle grooves into a medium-easy solo for cajon. Feel free to use these patterns in other settings and create your own variations, but whatever you do, make the groove feel good!
Box Tops - Josh Gottry
One of my former students once suggested that most rock tunes would be a lot more interesting if every fourth bar were in 7/8. With that in mind, this piece uses a few basic rock patterns that work well on cajon, but plays around with some mixed meter in the process. A few new sounds – knocking, slides, and fingertips – are also introduced, to expand the creative palette of your instrument.
Oxidation - Jonny Woodbury
No instrument is limited to one technique and this solo is designed to expand the vocabulary and explore various sounds of cajon. A groove-oriented piece, “Oxidation” phrases the familiar rhythms of American popular music while exploiting the cajon as a richly verbose instrument. Even rhythmically, this piece pursues unfamiliar musical textures but always returns to the central groove of the piece. As you learn and perform this piece, enjoy investigating the many sounds you can make with your cajon.
Combinatorics - Jonny Woodbury
This solo seeks to simultaneously examine the historical roots of the cajon while establishing it as a contemporary solo percussion instrument. The central groove relies heavily on traditional Peruvian rhythms, but also emphasizes independence, incorporates the use of additional implements, and flows naturally between traditional rhythms, sundry variations and permutations, and even popular American grooves. Enjoy the history as well as the rhythmic and stylistic challenges of this solo as your cajon performance skills increase.
Slide Rule - Josh Gottry & Jonny Woodbury
This duet is based loosely on a Brazilian baião and several metrical manipulations of that original groove. Weaving through numerous time signatures, a distinctive pitch slide with the foot repeatedly appears throughout the work, uniting the various ideas and serving as the primary inspiration for the title. In “Slide Rule,” we’ve tried to exploit many of the different elements featured in the solo works, but in a longer piece that allows like-minded individuals to enjoy performing on their “chairs” together. Make sure the piece grooves, the performers play with energy, and the audience is inspired to go find themselves some new musical furniture!