Canned for Trombone and Piano (2018) by Tyler W. Taylor

Canned is a piece which was inspired by my time at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (Mass MoCA) during the Bang on a Can Summer Festival of 2016. As the horn fellow at the festival, I performed alongside trombonist Cole Bartels who ultimately commissioned this piece.

The clock tower of the museum complex seemed to toll at random times and with repetitions that did not correspond to the hours they were supposed to represent. Additionally, the bell tolling seemed to be a distorted recording of a bell. The days at MASS MoCA where long and intense – the bizarre-sounding, random bell tolls became disorientating points of reference that perforated the days with comically false information.

Early in my studies as a composer Steve Rouse encouraged me to think of ways to use the piano that went beyond simply delivering accompanimental harmony and to try and take advantage of its percussive qualities. Prof. Freund echoed these sentiments and encouraged me to find ways to enrich the relationships in piano + instrument duos. The exploration of ways to reidentify the piano in this piece worked well in creating a musical scenario in which the trombone and piano play equal roles in portraying the bell. Initially, the piano represents an actual bell while the trombone takes on the characteristics of the imitation bell. These roles a switched through the course of the piece as the trombone’s tone becomes less abstract while the piano’s tone becomes more abstract. Short “interludes” perforate this process representing the disorienting effect of the tolling bells.

Special thanks to Bruce Vieweg, Alex van Duuren, Monica Stensland, and Kieran Welch for their generous support of this collaborative effort.