Sonicous Torturous-Tim Harpster

This is a bass trio that I wrote originally for a Solo & Ensemble Festival in early 2009. The playing styles used are rather unconventional, but they seem to add a nice effect. Players are required not only to play normally, but bow on the tuning pegs, tailpiece, above the nut, below the bridge, bow the bridge itself, and even bow the end-pin. Performers trade off 4 and 8 bar sections in certain parts of the piece where it is marked "Improv Wildly". The goal is to try to play as ridiculous as possible during your turn (although as we were playing on our schools basses, we decided to keep the destruction to a minimum). The kazoo is not written into the part, that was my turn. Each bassist has this twice, and all the rest of the music is actually printed on the page. The piece ends up being a secret competition between the three performers to come up with the most wild solo. In no way is this song supposed to be serious; I'm not even going to try to pretend that. This is my first copyrighted and published piece, and I am very proud of it.

The sheet music is available for purchase at www.timharpster.com

Performers (from left to right):

Eric Andrews--Bass 3
Tim Harpster(me)--Bass 1
Anthony Celario--Bass 2

Category:

Music

Tags:

• double
• upright
• stand-up
• standup
• funny
• hilarious
• amusing
• bass
• trio
• tim
• harpster
• eric
• andrews
• anthony
• celario
• sonicous
• torturous
• LVA
• chamber
• music
• sonic
• torture

[c3h4ohcooh3]

As a fellow composer of gimmicky concert pieces, I approve. Well done.

[onfiremusicman]

What an exciting piece! Thanks for posting. It gets a good reaction from the audience as well.