Tidal
for any melodic instrument

Work no. 252
2023

Tidal was composed as a birthday present. It's a simple algorithm: one melody is slowly, note by note, replaced by another. Like a coming tide; and then the tide recedes. Any instrument with suitable range can be used, and while there's a lower limit for transpositions, there's none for transpositions above what's written; so on certain instruments these tides can be made to sound very high-pitched, on the edge of hearing, ethereal.

Although this work properly belongs in the Study for an Algorithm series of pieces, the personal meaning that it has for me, and the sheer beauty that manifested itself in the lines, had me convinced that the piece requires its own space.