Trombone and percussion
Acoustic Composition 26
A World of Infinite Possibilities (2025)
Taking two steps forward and one jump back
For chamber sextet
A World of Infinite Possibilities (Guide Recording)
Earliest sketches for this piece date back to March 2005. It’s original working title was Another Daydream. At the time, this score was intended to complete the precompositional plan that the composer has previously documented as The Daydreams Meta-Formula. There were a series of works from the same plan, of which two have since been subsumed into other pieces (A Quintet of Daydreams for string quintet and A Trio of Daydreams for string trio). Another piece entitled Melancholy Daydreams for solo piano was vital to the precompositional planning, but has since been withdrawn. Only the Quartet of Daydreams for string quartet (2005/09), which was revised in 2017 remains as a complete piece from this series.
Originally sketched for single instrument orchestra (using only one of each instrument), A World of Infinite Possibilities has travelled through many guises to reach this final lineup for the unusual chamber sextet of flute, bass clarinet, two percussionists, violoncello and pedal harp. The composer has revisited this score for weeks at a time in 2010, 2014 and 2019. Work resumed between November 2020 - January 2021, but still no end (or real middle) in sight. The music was there and there were moments of excellence, it was a relatively short piece, but one just could not finesse the form or connect the linearity of the music. There are another handful of sketches dated through August 2021, until finally, this last visit through November 2025 has (after all these years) completed the score
Without going into surplus detail, the meta-formula predetermined the primary pitches (or rather the primary intervallic relationships) for the piece:
Bb - B - D - F - F#
The meta-formula (01478 or Pentachord 5-22) literally reads as two pairs of thirds (minor and Major) either side of the D pivot. The Quintet used all of the preconceived materials behind the Bb – B part of the planning, the Quartet used the ‘D materials’ and the Trio used F – F# materials. This piece was always intended to encapsulate the set and complete the precompositional plan, a rare statement from this composer. It has only taken twenty years to finally do so!
I shamelessly state this is excellent music! Quite unique! Section One sounds like a symbiotic mixture of Pierre Boulez and Barry White if that is even musically possible. It seems like describing oil and water, but the comparison is apt. Is the piece worth twenty years? Probably not, but it didn’t actually take twenty years and art is finished when it is finished, some pieces compose themselves and rush out into the world before you even get to know them. Others stay around for years and make you work for (and earn) their very appearance in the acoustic realm! The composer is just glad he is invited along for the ride and can occasionally be helpful during the journey. Besides, at this point in time, which seems to get less and less linear as one gets older, it feels like the piece only took a month to compose, ... and didn’t even need any planning ... Not Bad!
For Diogo
The Daydreams Meta-Formula
In the interest of fully documenting research and avoiding any interested explorer following a loose thread, the composer trawled through crates of handwritten ‘planning folders’ and archives of digital folders to try to define the genesis of the Daydreams Meta-Formula.
A digitised booklet of the resultant meta-materials for the cited Pentachord 5-22 is available on this webpage, but this does not explain the evolution of method. The composer found a group of handwritten sketches and theoretical musings in his ‘planning folder’ for the work. He realised they may be of interest to researchers, but did not wish to digitise them, as this always results in edits of layout and tends (in the interest of clarity) to shape a linear conversation (or illustration). Precompositional planning (and composition itself for that matter) is rarely linear; things happen all over the place, ‘all over the time’, whilst pen and paper allows one to scribe away almost subconsciously. It can seem lazy not to convert the material for public consumption, but in this instance, images of the original artefacts with a short commentary seem like a valuable addition to this documentation and avoids leaving any loose threads. The purpose of this document is not to define the micro-details, but rather to elucidate the general processes that help formal (almost corporeal) signposts and landmarks appear in the preconception of incorporeal music.
Through viewing these transcripts, the composer realised that the five fundamentals (01478) were taken directly from the primary chords of the four movements in Melancholy Daydreams for solo piano (2004). Each of the four movements developed on a variation of the same polychord, which basically played ‘opposing’ triads in each hand e.g. Bb augmented over B diminished, or B minor over Bb Major etc. Melancholy Daydreams has long been withdrawn, but most of the material was eventually subsumed into Tibetan Songs for solo piano (2016), and there was enough personal interest and intrigue within the four short movements (subtitled: What? Where? When? Why?) to inspire this work on a subsequent meta-formula for a whole series of larger pieces: Kudos to Melancholy Daydreams! From little things ...
Sometimes a plan is just a plan:
As a final caveat, the composer has also included an example of how form may develop away from the score (sometimes even before the score). The hand-penned document shows how formal planning evolved for the Bb - B part of the meta-formula. Formal planning is most often built from the foundation of a specific musical unit, this can literally be anything that inspires the mind, ear or soul: a motif, chord progression or theme, a tone-row or specific pitch-class cell, a rhythmic unit or combination of timbres, but a musical aesthetic; a defined musical object is always born first (or at very least at the same time). However, formal planning in turn then exerts its own influence over pitch organisation, along with illuminating questions of textural variety, emotional context and dynamic contours (when to be loud, quiet, fast, slow, positive or negative).
Developing these theoretical ideas can be addictive, and they often evolve intricate and elaborate labyrinths of substructure and narrative, but following them is less so. It can be exciting at first to ‘realise the plan’, and its value as a structural foundation for any work as a whole is immeasurable, but one should never be a slave to method. Follow it until the music emerges and then allow music and method to blend within a symbiotic process until you have mentally subsumed the method (or most of the primary influences) and can compose more instinctively. Follow the music! Sometimes the preconceived plan remains useful through to completion, sometimes the music finds its place earlier than expected and half of the planning is redundant as the music wants to stay where it is. Once the music starts to speak, the planning has fulfilled its purpose. Eventually the music takes over and makes all the decisions, especially in the final stages. You just try to listen to what it is telling you ...
Dr Ian, December 2025.
