Dennis Llinás Music

Javier's Dialog was commissioned by Javier Stuppard when we were in grad school together. I have a practice that I like to compose certain pieces in the personality of the commissioning party and this is no exception. Javier has a radiant energy to his personality and speaks in almost rhythmic cadences. As such I tried to capture his energy in this piece.

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We discussed in the early stages the Wah-Wah mute and I knew that was going to be a driving factor in many of the figures of the piece. After I found the Circuit Dialog patch on GarageBand for the midi controller, I knew the combination of that and the effects in the trombone would capture the sonic palette I was looking for.

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The pianist in this piece performs both on a midi controller plugged into GarageBand (accessing two specific patches - Circuit Dialog & Cosmic Reflection). This part may be performed by an additional performer if the pianist is not confident in the switches between the instruments as some occur relatively quickly. When experimenting with the Wah-Wah mute sections, it is important that the effect blends with the other instruments  performing with the trombone. If the mute does not capture the effect, this could also be performed with a straight or pixie mute and a plunger. I leave that up to the performer to decide what setup they want to explore.

 

Additionally, Javier had an exceptionally high range so there are certain ossia recommended in the score.