Whimsical thoughts

The flutist for whom I drew up the Airy Distillates, Meerenai Shim, wrote to say that she hopes to play the piece this year.  Knowing that she has formed the A/B Duo with percussionist Chris Jones, and with an eye to the next component of the Op.114 pieces, I asked her if she would be interested in a piece for flute and marimba.  Not at present, but mostly because of portability.

Shortly after this e-mail exchange, I saw posted on Facebook a call for scores for A/B Duo.  Partly because I have just been working with the Whimsies, and partly because (even before the quartet 'expansion') I had turned over mentally the idea of adapting the piece for Peter H. Bloom's use, last night I burned rubber re-shaping about half of the Whimsies for bass flute and vibraphone.

Now, I shan't call that effort futile, but I might have used the time otherwise if I had had the sense to check out the video demo which Meerenai furnished on the Call page.  The character of even the "modular reduction" of the Whimsies which I chopped out last night is simply unsuited to their purpose.

For the A/B Duo's Happy Hour project/call, I shall in fact go back to Plan A:  I shall write up the Op.114 № 3 for them.  But instead of marimba, I shall use vibraphone.  [ And so, for the 'full trio' piece which will be the Op.114 № 4, the percussionist will alternate between marimba and vibraphone.  I entirely like that. ]