Purely instrumental music, rather than electro-acoustic. A selection of recordings and scanned scores. Steadily these scores will be digitised (some are already) and analysis documents, programme notes etc. will also be added. For now there is a selection of recordings of ensemble pieces workshopped during the 1990s. These recordings appear with the permission of the performers and commercial exploitation is explicitly forbidden. Sharing is completely free and if you make any recordings of scores (or have requests for pieces) please let me know.
Please note that the scanned and typed-in scores have now moved to a separate collection to make life easier when downloading these recordings. Just search for "Greg Fox" under open source texts and you'll find them there, with a few additions including the 1991 organ sonata and the computer-score for "Al-Habashiya" for piano solo
Additional update: collaborations are especially welcomed over long distances with solo instrumentalists - just record yourself improvising into the microphone or tape. Save in mp3 format, preferably mono 44khz or less for ease of transfer (or post here as a collection with "open source audio" as the subject) and we can work together, regardless of style, ability-level, etc. etc. etc.
New Miracle Scenes: See separate document, which explains the methodology which is relevant to the other pieces too. All Ensemble FIREBIRD recordings are explicitly forbidden for commercial exploitation. See the "Other Files" section for scores, analyses, programme notes etc.
Miss The Lift
Written for Ensemble FIREBIRD in the 1996 Under-graduate season at Huddersfield, "Miss The Lift" employs the same 'serial permutations' method as "New Miracle Scenes" but rather than allocating the material according to a grand plan a la "Momente", here the structure is free-form, with individual instruments tending to take their own path through the material. The piece explores the undermining of metre, not so much in terms of rhythmic complexity as unconducted passages. The piano quite often diverges from the rest of the group in unconducted solos, often using material derived from the serial permutations read in directions other than horizontally. In other words instead of reading permutation one, then permutation two and so on, the piano part sometimes reads all the first classes of the twelve permutations, then the second classes, and so on, or else reads diagonally. In this way, strings of repeated pitch-classes and small motivic units arise from the data.
Meritocracy
The last of the three performed ensemble pieces from the 90s, Meritocracy is for small ensemble and voice. Initially a counterpoint is created between the melody-line of the singer and the verbal description of what she's singing. This creates a lag where the words are of more than one syllable, so that in the end there's a kind of harmony between what she says she's singing and what she's really singing.
The piece is in two parts, and continues the themes of divergence from conducted material and serial permutations. The end of the piece ends up just being for solo marimba and is a real come-down after the quite cheerful flamboyant 'meritocracy' music of the previous 14 minutes.
Organ Sonata, 1991
This was probably the first "finished" piece that I completed, and was also the first partly serial piece of the 90s. The opening section lays out material derived systematically from some sort of verbal encryption. This is then varied and repeated in various ways. Later genuinely serial elements are introduced as well as the tonal central movement in E minor.
Trio Sonata, 1995 (Score only - scanned in JPEG format: Sibelius score to follow eventually)
This piece hasn't been performed so there's no sound recording on the CD but the score is available and eventually I'll get round to typing it into Sibelius.
Bound scores, parts, etc. are available on request.
The piece is "In E" and is based on serial permutations filtered in the various modes of E, from the phrygian mode (white notes) through to the five-sharp Ionian mode (or E Major).
The rate of tonal progression is different between the flute and violin parts, one of which cycles through all the permutations for each mode, and the other does the opposite. The harpsichord&cello continuo basically double at key points, though they diverge from this mission as the piece develops. The final coda derives its rhythm from the (previously unstated) seed Row of the piece, using ties/filters. The notes selected are the major triads of each of the notes of the row in order. Overall the piece is about the meeting-point of minimal, tonal and serial music in a chamber setting.
Dark Blow
Written for Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival 1998 and played by Tim Brady, this recording appears with permission and is explicitly non-commercial.
Bloody
Written for the Mike Barlow Wine Quintet, 1997, performed in St Paul's Hall, Huddersfield (UK).
Please note that this page contains a number of supporting documents - you will find zipfiles containing scanned scores and hopefully soon typed-in scores. You will also find software for Win32 and also for the ZX Spectrum, which was written in order to facilitate the (pre-)composition of many of these pieces. In particular, the "Serial Editor" was a tool developed first in 1995 on the ZX Spectrum to calculate the serial permutations described in "New Miracle Scenes: METHODOLOGY" and then ported to the Windows platform in c.1998. The Spectrum version comes as a VOC file (compatible with emulators and real spectrums), screenshots of the BASIC listing, TAP format tape files for use in emulators and Z80 snapshot format, also for use in emulators. As a special bonus, I've also included my "Snail-racing" game, also from 1995, again for the ZX Spectrum, as its writing was very much parallel to that of 'Sound Designer' (see "Estuary Erotica"), 'Sample Sequencer' (see "Abrase Yourself") and 'Serial Editor'.
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