About the Notation

For Mobiles (1981), Sonata – Images from ‘the far field’ (1981), echoes from an urban glade (1981), and invocation (1982)

The music for these four pieces consists of a series of repeated patterns.  These patterns are started, stopped, or changed one by one throughout the piece.

The music begins with the first instrument playing and repeating the first pattern.  The second pattern should generally not start until the first pattern has been played at least once and usually not more than twice.  The third pattern should wait for the second, the fourth should wait for the third, etc., throughout the rest of the piece.

A player playing a pattern should keep repeating that pattern until he changes either to a new pattern or to a rest.  A player changes to a new pattern by playing to the “transition point” of the old pattern and going directly to the beginning of the new pattern (attacca).  The transition point is either marked by two parallel lines ( // ) or, when not marked, is at the end of the pattern.

Though a player should generally wait until the preceding pattern has been played once or twice before going on to the next pattern, this is not a hard and fast rule depending on the lengths of each pattern and how they interact.  If the preceding pattern is short, for instance, a player may wish to wait for three or more repetitions before going on.  On the other hand, if the preceding pattern is quite long, a player may want to go on to the following pattern before the preceding pattern has been played even once.  Under all circumstances, however, a player should change patterns at the transition point only.

The designations “No repeat”, “Repeat two times (2x)” etc. at the beginning of a pattern refer to the number of times the player should play (the beginning of) the pattern before moving on to the next pattern.  In some cases this may move a player ahead of the rest of the group.  If this happens, the player should wait until the rest of the group catches up before moving again.

A fermata over a note in this context means that the note is of variable length.  Though the note should be at least as long as the note shown, the actual length of the note may change with each repeat, at the discretion of the player.  A fermata over a horizontal bracket signifies a variable internal repeat.

Unless otherwise marked, all the patterns should be played in a common tempo.  The common time unit and tempo marking are shown.  When two or more tempi are indicated, those players playing similar tempi should play together.  The designation “freely” indicates the player should play independently of the common tempo.