Text by Craig Shepard

Photo by Beth O’Brien

Wind Shadows is for trombone and pure sine tones. Two speakers are set up, one to the left, and one to the right, and one sine tone comes out of each speaker. They are tuned almost exactly the same. The subtle difference creates a beating pattern that sweeps from left to right through the room once every ten seconds, seeming to change volume for a few seconds as it passes the listener. The trombone stands in between the speakers, and places tones very close to the sine tones, creating another beating pattern. Each trombone tone moves very slightly, and the beating sometimes slightly slows, and other times slightly speeds up.

Even though this is a solo performance, the music comes out of a community. For technical assistance, I am very grateful to Ben Manley and Dan Joseph. For guidance in understanding the piece, special thanks to Daniel Wolf at Material Press, and Alvin Lucier himself, partly through the excellent interviews given in the MusikTexte book Reflections.

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