About Alternative Facts for Percussion Quartet
The commission is now complete and the piece was premiered May 1, 2023. The co-commissioning ensembles are: Talujon, Percussive Arts Society Massachusetts Chapter, Iktus Percussion, Percussion on the Sound, Queens College Percussion Ensemble, University of Michigan Percussion Ensemble, University of Georgia Percussion Ensemble, and Verona High School Percussion Ensemble. As of May 1, 2024, the exclusive period will have ended and other ensembles may also perform this piece.
My 20 minute quartet, Alternative Facts, was composed with both professional and advanced school ensembles in mind. The piece features a combination of conventional percussion instruments and reclaimed materials — paper and cardboard. Each group performing the piece assembles their own materials and each player assembles an instrument of seven found sound objects, making each performance distinctive.
Many of these details were developed in collaboration with Talujon.
I do not usually write pieces “about” something, unless there is a text involved, but I have been trying to incorporate text and ideas about the climate crisis in recent pieces. This is not just to make a timely story, but because I feel that the crisis colors everything we do now - even with so many difficult issues we face. the new work will grapple with the issue on multiple levels, most explicitly in the use of reclaimed materials as instruments. Alternative Facts often includes text that is recited in some movements, often rhythmically synchronized with the playing. Much of this text consists of "found poetry" assembled by me from the publicly available, obsessive, repetitive, climate-change denying tweets and rants of a well-known New York real estate "developer" and TV personality.
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NOTES and TEXT
Alternative Facts often requires the players to recite text while playing. Much of this text consists of "found poetry" assembled by me from the publicly available, obsessive, repetitive, climate-change denying tweets and rants of a well-known New York real estate "developer" and TV personality. Movement II starts with my own composed lines and ends with a paraphrase of physicist, Carl Sagan. Movement III is my own version of a demented, sycophantic Greek Chorus riffing in a nonsensical way on the larger context for the ranting that follows in subsequent movements.
In many cases, the score provides rhythms for the text. Sometimes the text is spoken to the same rhythms being played on the instruments. In other cases, words are recited without also playing instruments - sometimes with no rhythm indicated. Care should be taken to develop effective, ways of delivering the text in each movement that serves the moment. The players should strive to inflect the text like natural speech, even though much of the notation uses a single note position to indicate the rhythm. The choice to use a single note was made tomake the lines easier to read and does not imply a monotone delivery.
Each player should think of themselves as playing a character - a messenger delivering these texts and not the actual person who first expressed them.
If desired, the recited text may be doubled by additional players in some or all movements, so long as this is done with enough precision for the text to be understood. Larger ensembles may also wish to assign movements to different players to allow for more participation.
TEXT
Alternative Facts (for percussion quartet) – Eric Chasalow
I. Like a spirited drum corps that keeps falling apart
II. With calm resignation, tinged with sadness
We sense something grave is happening
but there is nowhere to go
and so,
we slide back
into superstition
and darkness.
III. Scrambling in and out of a groove
hoax, hoax
never a contradiction
of the precious hoax
invention of a new hoax
We, ourselves are the hoax
We are the cleanest
We are the
We have clarity so
We have confidence in this hoax
Which we have exceeded
Exceedingly, constantly, repeatedly
Endlessly repeated
Real because I said so
And Holy
IV. Ponderous, telling the story, somewhat mocking
It is really too bad that the scientists studying GLOBAL WARMING
in Antarctica got stuck on their icebreaker because of massive ice and cold.
Newly released emails prove that scientists have manipulated data on global warming.
The data is unreliable.
The rescue icebreaker, trying to free the ship of the GLOBAL WARMING scientists,
has turned back-the ice is massive (a record). IRONIC!
The global warming scientists don't want to be airlifted off the ship-they are having too much fun
and that is too simple a solution-FAME!
Temperature at record lows in many parts of the country. 50 degrees below zero with wind chill
in large area. Global warming folks iced in!
What the hell is going on with GLOBAL WARMING. The planet is freezing, the ice is building
and the G.W. scientists are stuck-a total con job…This very expensive
GLOBAL WARMING bullshit has got to stop. Our planet is freezing, record low temps, and
our GW scientists are stuck in ice.
It's 46º (really cold) and snowing in New York - tell the so-called "scientists"
that we want global warming right now!
V. An ever-growing hocket, with precision
It’s freezing and snowing in New York
It’s freezing and snowing in New York City
Jerusalem and Lebanon in Texas and Arizona,
Oklahoma, Denver and Minnesota,
Baltimore and New York City
Weather across the country brutal
must be all of that global warming.
What the hell ever happened to global warming!
Thirty-two degrees in New York – it’s freezing!
Where the hell is global warming when you need it?
VI. Obsessive, intense
It used to be called something
What was it?
What was that something
That I obsessed about
But now, just can’t remember,
and they changed it.
They changed it!
They changed it.
Why?
They renamed it Climate Change so it could be devastating either way the temperature goes.
Why? Oh, why did they have to change it?
They only changed the term to CLIMATE CHANGE when the words
GLOBAL WARMING didn't work anymore. Come on people, get smart!
Don't let the dollar sucking wiseguys change names midstream because the first name didn't work.
Are we still wasting billions on the global warming con? We should be focusing on beautiful,
clean air & not on wasteful & very expensive GLOBAL WARMING bullshit!
Sad!
VII. A disintegrating ritual - focused
© 2023 Eric Chasalow
Questions?
contact Matthew Gold goldmatthew.a@gmail.com
or Eric ericchasalow@gmail.com