Ripples 4

for percussion quartet

Written for the Sō Percussion Summer Institute in 2023. In Ripples 4, the familiar mechanics of digital delay are reimagined through purely acoustic means. Rather than relying on electronics or effects, the piece uses rhythmic displacement and precise ensemble timing to evoke the cascading echoes of a delay pedal. All four percussionists perform the same musical material, but each enters successively, offset by a dotted eighth note. This staggered layering creates a kaleidoscopic texture, like ripples across water, where patterns seem to chase and reflect each other. As the piece unfolds, these rhythmic echoes blur the boundaries between individual performers, transforming the quartet into a single, pulsating engine of sound, highlighted and contrasted in driving, rhythmic unison sections. Ripples 4 challenges both performers and listeners to find shape and structure within delay, imitation, and overlapping time.​

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Performance History

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July 28, 2023 - Sō Percussion Summer Institute, by David Graff Gabriella Reyna, Christopher Short, & Viraj Sonawala - Lee Hall, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ