A few words from the composer:

Twisted Feather was premiered by Sarah Hind at the University of Huddersfield in May 2013. The piece uses a loop and effects pedal to allow more complex sound worlds to be created as a soloist. The piece falls into two sections. The first focusing on short and lyrical melodic phrases over a sound world created on the loop pedal. This opening loop can either be pre recorded and faded in at the beginning of the performance or built up live. The second section is lively with the looping process occurring in a much more structured way. The effects pedal is used in different ways to give depth to the over all sound which crescendos to an energetic and frantic finale.

Twisted Feather was written using a Digitech Vocal 300 vocal effects processor. Any other way of achieving these effects will work just as well.

Patch 1 should be set up with some reverb and delay depending on the acoustic of performance space.

Patch 2 should be set up so all of the output sounds 2 octaves lower than played on the saxophone.

LOOP PEDAL

Twisted Feather was written using a Boss RC30 Loop Pedal, the directions for pedals correspond to this particular pedal. A pedal that gets the same effect will work just as well.

The piece is built on an 8 bar loop (bar 24-31) which is added to every time the left pedal is stomped. The left pedal also pauses the looping to allow the performer to play over the top of it, for example, in bars 48-71.

LP – stomp on the left pedal to begin looping and add to the loop. RP – stomp on the right pedal to stop the loop.

If you require any additional information about this work please do get in touch with myself via Saxtet Publications.

“Twisted Feather” is also available in printed edition from June Emerson Wind Music.