I like to think of this piece as a sort of elaboration on one note - the piece began as I forced myself to write something that maintained a steady rhythm. The question driving the piece is then: what is the natural direction for one note that is constantly articulated?

The first solution is to change the order in which the three instruments articulate the note; the second is to convolute the sound by moving away from that one note. In the second part of the piece, the pulse is distorted, pulled, and stretched; the process becomes one of convoluting a pulse, not elaborating on it. The third section of the piece contains the “deviations” of the title - the inner voices that appeared almost by accident in the preceding processes become the focus of the piece, building counterpoint out of rhythmic distortion, and finding melody in broken rhythm.

Convolutions and Deviations was premiered by Colin Laursen, Jordan Bak, and Daniel Tavani, coached by Itamar Ringel, at Next Stage in Putney, VT on June 21, 2014.

Score Sample (3:40 to 5:30 of recording)