Septet

Dwayne Rice

General Info

Year: 2014
Duration: c. 4:30
Difficulty: Medium
Publisher: C. Alan
Cost: Score & Parts - $36.00

Instrumentation

Player I: concert snare drum, 3 brake drums, opera gong, taiko drums, tam-tam
Player II: piccolo snare drum, kick bass drum, 4 cowbells
Player III: field drum, granite blocks (5), tambourine, doumbek
Player IV: concert snare drum, concert tom, log drum (4 pitches), djembe
Player V: concert snare drum, 5 concert toms, concert bass drum, triangle, suspended cymbal, China cymbal
Player VI: drum set with hi-hat, 2 crashes, ride, and splash
Player VII: firecracker snare drum, bongos, congas (2), maracas, surdo, claves

Program Notes

Commissioned by the Lone Star Wind Orchestra (LSWO) Percussion Ensemble, Septet is an advanced, college level percussion ensemble for seven players.

Any live performance by a group of people, whether it is music, dance, or theatre, is essentially a conversation between all those involved. In this case, it is a conversation between seven percussionists, each with his or her own culturally unique set up. They begin with the same rhythmic material and on the same family of instruments. After the introduction, they start to separate and differentiate, branching out from the rhythmic motive into rhythmic and melodic configurations more like the culture their instrumentation represents. As the piece progresses, each performer struggles for dominance over what becomes an unsteady and constantly interrupted groove. They coalesce into larger and larger groups, until they are all saying the same thing, but fighting to be the loudest voice.

At rehearsal 14, which is also the geometric mean of the piece, the argument comes to a violent end, whereupon the “African Drummer” (Player 4) pulls them out of the chaos by starting a new groove. This new groove quickly transforms itself back into the original motivic material, going through the opening sections in reverse order, until the piece closes with them once again in agreement. If there were a lesson to be learned from this conversation, it would be that no matter how different we think we are, what part of the world we come from, what story we believe in, what language we speak, or what we choose to do with what we are given, we are all essentially the same thing . . . human.

Recent Performances

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Works for Percussion by this Composer

Baroque Suite - Timpani (5)
Concertino for Marimba (Rice) - Marimba, Percussion Octet
Entangled States - Multiple Percussion, Percussion Trio
Fantasie in A for Marimba - Marimba
I Ching (Rice) - Percussion Ensemble (12)
Moto Perpetuo - Percussion Ensemble (12)
Quartet No. 1 in F - Marimba Quartet
Septet - Percussion Septet
Sonata No. 1 for Marimba - Marimba
Variations for Marimba - Marimba
Warp - Percussion Ensemble (11)

Arrangements

Claire de Lune (Debussy) - Mallet Ensemble (8)
Reverie (Debussy) - Mallet Ensemble (8)