Traffic

... for brass quintet is based on pitches and rhythms derived from a transcription of a recording I made of traffic sounds in Astoria, Queens. The original durations from the transcription were expanded in time. I then expanded them again, and then again. I imposed some intuitive judgments relating to octave displacement, timbral manipulation and dynamic choices. The result is an eight minute soundscape where individuals emerge from and recede into a texture of largely sustained harmony, anarchic in its origins but fixed in its present form. I later used the same structure as the basis for Traffic for strings, a piece for string orchestra.