Window Image 

Organ, c. 6’ 00”

I sketched this piece in the midst of several trips in a row, when I felt like I was constantly on a bus, train or airplane staring out the window, watching all kinds of places go by with a hint of my reflection staring back at me. It became very meditative, but a bit sad as well – many of the places I was passing by, I knew I would never actually visit. I’d only ever see them once removed through the window. I experimented with different harmonic rhythms and rates of change throughout the piece as well, which I thought fit the image. Looking down at the road or the tracks while traveling makes it look like one is moving very fast, while staring into the distance seems as if very little movement is happening. This piece became a bit of a theme and variations, with each melodic passage reflecting out of an initial colourful cluster of pitches in a different way. The repeated rhythmic notes in the beginning of each section contain the numbers of various major roads and motorways around Scotland and the north of England.

Commissioned by Roger Williams MBE.

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