Heliograph

Vibraphone + Alto Sax., c. 5’00”

A heliograph is a telegraph that uses sunlight and reflective mirrors to transmit messages, usually using Morse code. It was used most often over long distances in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. I am often inspired by unusual methods or patterns of communication in my music and I found the idea of using the sun for communication quite poetic, especially for the dead of winter when we want to make the most of every ray of sunshine we get. I used harmonies made up of stacked intervals increasing and decreasing in size, reflecting out of a note like a prism. Instead of using Morse code to develop my rhythms, I derived them from my family’s phone numbers. 

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