I am in the first grade

This piece is the opening of my score to Rajiv Joseph’s Red Folder, an illustrated play run by Steppenwolf Theatre in early 2021. My experience working with their creative team was one of the most enjoyable projects of my life. Excited to share it with you today.

To hear all my other music/videos, please say hi over at bandcamp or youtube.

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“This is me — I am in the first grade”

That’s the first line in Rajiv Joseph’s illustrated play Red Folder. Rajiv created a sequence of 103 drawings that tell the story of a boy who creates an entire internal world to process the feeling of being overwhelmed at school. The character was voiced by Steppenwolf member Carrie Coon, and the images brought to life via retracing and animation.

I did the score, and in the prelude we hear this music — I’ve aimed to represent the simplicity of his outlook as a typical first-grader. He’s perfectly happy, minding his own business. Soon he’ll face his demons. But for now his stomach is growling…

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Tuning: Harmonic Sequence

I am in the first grade features a “harmonic sequence” tuning — simply mapping the natural harmonic series sequentially up the piano keyboard.

The first partial only of a harmonic series is mapped as usual. Each successive step is tuned to one harmonic partial higher than the previous step. This creates very large intervals at the bottom, and progressively smaller and smaller intervals at the top.

The partials of the harmonic series mapped from the key C0 would look like this:

Harmonic sequence from C, as numbered partials

Expressed in note names:

Harmonic sequence from C0, as note names (using Ben Johnston’s elegant notational system for just intonation — more on that in future posts)

I am in the first grade uses two harmonic sequence tunings: one from C0, and one from F0.

In the real world, a tuning like this would be impossible… stretching a piano string almost an octave higher than the pitch it was intended for wouldn’t work, and would surely damage the instrument.

But in the world of electronic composition using sample libraries, this creative device becomes possible, and practical. I find it endlessly inspiring — we never get to hear the piano tuned to the pure harmonic series! With beautifully realistic modern sample libraries¹, that sound is now available.

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If you’d like to hear the full score to this work, or get a copy of the extreme limited-edition lathe-cut record, please visit the album at bandcamp:

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1. I use Soniccouture’s Hammersmith: https://www.soniccouture.com/en/products/26-percussion/g49-the-hammersmith/