Delta Oracle

I started Delta Oracle in 2017 and sketched and revised it copiously without being satisfied; in 2020 I came back and completed it, so it is not on the published compact disc. The piece is notated almost completely in quarter-notes, with a different tempo on every beat for long passages. This provides for an unmetrical rhythm that reminds me of the more flexible and nuanced rhythm of declamatory speech. The tempos follow a quasi-exponential scale from 11 beats per minute to 610. (In 2012 I had written a rhythmic study in this technique called Mystic Chords, but this is far more elaborate.) Delta Oracle is perhaps the first piece in F7+ minor (F7+ being the 35th harmonic of Eb).

Audio engineering: Matt Sargent