Australian Music Centre | Breaking sound barriers

Work Overview

This piece is dedicated to Lyle Mays and Pat Metheny, co-composers of 'The First Circle'. Having analysed this piece for my Masters thesis back in 1990, I had long wanted to write a work that took 'The First Circle' as its starting point. In the end, I deviated away from that model in a number of ways, but there are still comparable aspects. The use of a consistent pulse, redefined by varied groupings of either 2 or 3 quavers, together with a middle-section improvisation that leads back to a recapitulation defines the structure of the work in similar fashion to 'The First Circle'.

The title is indirectly an anagram: from 'The First Circle', I was able to derive Electric Shrift. I substituted shrift, with its synonym, confession, and thus arrived at Electric Confession. While that was fun (and somewhat arbitrary), I do feel that the title appropriately reflects my homage to Mays and Metheny's wonderful piece.

The work was written specifically for Ken Murray, who also assisted with the preparation of the fixed media part and the guitar setup.

Work Details

Year: 2000

Instrumentation: Electric guitar + fixed media.

Duration: 9 min.

Difficulty: Advanced — Advanced student/professional.

Dedication note: Dedicated to Lyle Mays, Pat Metheny. Dedicated to Lyle Mays, Pat Metheny

Written for: Ken Murray