SPONGE for Trombone and Electronics

SPONGE, for trombone and electronics (MAX/MSP), was written for and premiered by Tim Taylor. The title refers to how the electronics “absorb” the acoustic trombone sound and output the processed sound in sporadic way. The melodic material for this piece is drawn from traditional Polish music discovered and transcribed by the musicologist Chalubinski. The name of the tune heard throughout the piece, and heard in full at the end of the piece, is Slodyczkowa. The electronics heard in SPONGE are an attempt to enhance the sonorous and resonant sound of the trombone by using quasi-random digital delay to create “glitchy and stretchy” sounds with the trombone serving as the source material.