Daniel Kessner
Music in Uncommon Modes, for shakuhachi, quarter-tone bass flute, and guitar
Duration: 17'
Instrumentation details:
bass flute
shakuhachi
guitar
Music in Uncommon Modes, for shakuhachi, quarter-tone bass flute, and guitar
Translation, reprints and more
Daniel Kessner
Bassflöte (Music in Uncommon Modes, for shakuhachi, quarter-tone bass flute, and guitar)
Available digitally
Type: Stimme
Daniel Kessner
Gitarre (Music in Uncommon Modes, for shakuhachi, quarter-tone bass flute, and guitar)
Available digitally
Type: Stimme
Daniel Kessner
Music in Uncommon Modes, for shakuhachi, quarter-tone bass flute, and guitar
Available digitally
Type: Dirigierpartitur
Daniel Kessner
Shakuhachi (Music in Uncommon Modes, for shakuhachi, quarter-tone bass flute, and guitar)
Available digitally
Type: Stimme
Sample pages
Work introduction
In this work, the composer explores the most exotic and obscure combination of instruments of his entire career. It is also among his most intensely microtonal works. The Japanese bamboo flute, the shakuhachi, was created to favor microtonal alterations; the bass flute required is a specially built instrument with the capability of playing quarter-tones throughout nearly its entire register (the most common being the Kingma System instrument); the guitar must be re-tuned, with one string a quarter-tone lower than normal.
It was written for the British ensemble rarescale, with a reference to its name inscribed into the title: uncommon mode = rare scale.
The guitar tuning (from lowest to highest) is: low D, A, D, G, B-quarter-tone flat, D.