Tesla’s Harmony (for mallet quartet) – PDF

The ‘mad scientist’, Nikola Tesla, who is famously known for inventing the alternating current (AC) electricity supply system, has always been a character of fascination to me. Stories of his public demonstrations with electricity and the iconic pictures of him sitting in a room with huge lightning bolts coming from his Tesla coils are inspirations of Tesla’s Harmony. The music depicts what I imagine as a dance of electrical light. While the electrical lights are awe-striking and intense, at the same time they can be seen as being in perfect balance/harmony with everything that is around.

This piece is scored for mallet percussion quartet with some auxiliary instruments.

Player 1 – 5 octave marimba
Player 2 – 5 octave marimba
Player 3 – 4 octave vibraphone, brake drum, low tom and kick drum. (If a 4 octave vibraphone is unavailable, player may opt to either omit or transpose the notes in brackets by an octave. Low tom and kick drum may be substituted with medium tom and low tom.)
Player 4 – 3 octave vibraphone, marimba (shared with Player 2), optional crotales

Duration: ca. 8 minutes.

Pius Cheung

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