By Lewis Spratlan | For Percussion Duo | 9′

Title: Mega-Ditty
Composer: Lewis Spratlan
Year Composed: 2004
Instrumentation: For Percussion Duo
Duration: 9′

Format: 2x Full Score
Page Size: Letter
Catalog Number: OM0407

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From the composer:

Mega-Ditty was composed for Duo Contexto (percussionists Eduardo Leandro and Ricardo Bologna) during the summer of 2004. The ditty in question is made up of two figures, each consisting of the musical letters in the duo’s names (E-D-A-D-E-A-D and C-A-D-Bb-G-A), thus a seven-note and a six-note figure, grinding against one another. When these notes are combined they make up a collection of six pitch-classes (G-A-Bb-C-D-E) which, later, is complemented by the collection B-C#-D#-E#-F#-G#. So, the piece’s polarities are the two figures of the ditty and the two six-note collections.

The instrumentation consists of a five-octave marimba and a vibraphone, the first accompanied by two log drums and four temple blocks and the second by two conga drums and four bongos. Much of the dialogue of the piece deals with hocket-like oscillations between the pitched and non-pitched instruments. The middle section shifts gears abruptly as stark chords in the marimba generate disparate echoes in the vibraphone; this texture gives way to some sustained lyricism in the vibraphone supported by wide-ranging arpeggiation in the marimba, an accompanimental figure that becomes the main event later on. The piece concludes with an abbreviated return to the opening figuration and one last shot at the echoing chords.

Commission/Dedication: To Duo Contexto: Richardo Bologna and Eduardo Leandro.
Premiere: First performed November 11, 2004 at SUNY Stony Brook by Ian Antonio and Eduardo Leandro.
Recording: