Modus Operandi for Piano

This composition was inspired by a drawing of Shuchen Zhou, the student who premiered this composition. Along with the drawing, Shuchen sent suggestions on how the drawing might translate to music. The suggestions gave rise to my idea of writing a piece called “Modus Operandi” meaning “a mode of working or operating”. It consists of five short movements :  1. Inspiration starts with a germ idea (motive) and grows in excitement. 2. Sketch has the right hand in the high register and the left hand in the low register suggesting lots of room to fill in details. 3. Tools uses a different motive for each tool used in the drawing. The brush is delicate with soft dynamics, the pencil is chords and tone clusters with different degrees of consonance and dissonance, the marker is bold and loud, and the beads are represented by ornaments. 4. Trial and Error has elements of humor with things that sound wrong that are eventually corrected. Facial expressions by the performer are part of this movement. 5. Perfection uses the germ idea from the first movement and transforms it into a fully polished statement.