Kenny Hill
Doberman – Yppan : 16 pages
Born in San Jose, Kenny Hill has been a musician all his life, but spent as long time not writing pieces, but rather performed, taught, and made instruments too, so when he reached his 70th birthday in 2018, he decided to change that, and started writing. One of the results is this 3- movement suite which does have an unusual tuning. He requires the player to put a partial capo over the top 5 strings on fret 4, whilst leaving the sixth string to its normal E. However, as 5 of the 6 strings could not be written in the key they sound in, without giving the player too many headaches, he wrote it down here, as if the fret 4 capoed strings are in the open position, and hence the top string fret 4, as it is, when capoed there, is written down not as a G#, but as an E, as if it were the open string. Finally as the piece sounds in E Major, but actually is written in C Major, the bottom E string is written down here as if it were a C. This might sound very complex, but in the end, this ‘tablature’ form of notation, is really the only way that a player could cope with it. I suppose that if you had a guitar that could cope with a sixth string being tuned down to a low C (which is not very likely I guess) then you could dispense with the capo, and play it like that!
The opening movement is a seven page 6 minute work, which relies almost entirely on arpeggiated semi – quavers, sometimes in groups of 4, but a lot of the time in two groups of 5, followed by a group of 6, where the arpeggios are deliberately mixtures of fretted and open notes, creating a very imaginative ringing sound that is lovely to hear and also quite tricky to play but worth the effort! There is absolutely no let up from the constant semi – quavers and yet the music is superbly written and once mastered makes quite an impression.
The second movement is Blindness, and is marked mysterious and is the slow movement in the work. After a very deliberately repetitive opening it breaks into a slow waltz where the introductory melody returns at various moments. Mostly it is in two voices and very occasionally, three, with a number of speed deviations and a number of harmonics including the coda where they close the movement.
Canary Jig is the final movement and it tries to put a lightly humorous touch into the work, as the first two movements have been so sad and strange in their harmonies. As he states in his Preface the movement uses a theme or two from old works, and here it is immediately noticeable that Sanz’s Canarios is where the main theme come from. That however is only the starting point, because from there the piece develops, again with a lot of laisser vibrer arpeggiated harmonies into a fast moving dance like work that has a lot of happy moments. This again is quite a handful for the player, but well worth the effort, as it is a great finale to the whole suite.
So in essence, providing you can cope with the unusual tuning and stringing problem, you will find much to enjoy. It is a lovely and imaginative work.
Chris Dumigan
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