Karim Al-Zand: Music: Loop Studies

Loop Studies

for violin & loop pedal

Loop Studies was written during the covid-19 pandemic. Chamber music performances during the pandemic have often relied on asynchronous multi-tracking as a necessity. Loop Studies is a duet, but is playable in real-time by a single musician with the aid of a loop pedal.

Each of its four studies uses an idiosyncratic musical fragment that is played, recorded and repeated. The first study, Berceuse, is a lullaby based on a gentle, rocking, cross-string figure. Lines is a short set of variations on a fragment by Luigi Dallapiccola, an improvisatory fantasy over a chromatic accompaniment drawn from the composer’s Quaderna Musicali. Straw Man Parade has the violinist using in turn various coloristic effects: pizzicato, harmonics, bowing near the bridge of the instrument—all heard over a bouncing figure performed with the wood of the bow. Tone Up/Tone Down features a syncopated, irregular groove underlying a vigorous and “athletic” foreground part.