Unfettered Time

Matt Wasson

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Wind Ensemble

2021

10 min.

Program Notes: The title of this piece comes from a lyric in my favorite Bon Iver song, 8 (circle): "I will run (carry up love along unfettered time)" Those words led me to contemplate how music takes an otherwise undisturbed block of time and "fetters" it with sounds. From this perspective I began to imagine what kind of music could paradoxically create a sense of un-fettered time, of time that simply passes moment to moment. While this is how the piece begins and ends, the inner sections have various ups and downs to provide some contrast. After finishing the piece, I realized that its form could be described as an outline of the emotional landscape of the creative process itself: starting in a "neutral" state of awareness, the spark of an idea stimulates the mind; practical concerns temporarily stall the excitement, but this sense of calm induces a flow state that allows for a moment of genuine inspiration; one's sense of time expands and contracts while immersed in the creative act, and just when the promise of the initial idea has been fully realized in the new creation, the mind is gently yanked back down to earth where it began.
Recording Notes: Dorico playback with NotePerformer