Hard Day

Hard Day is a duet for violins that utilizes a pitch collection taken from "A Day in the Life" by The Beatles from the seminal 1967 release Sgt. Peppet's Lonely Hearts Club Band. It was written as part of the 2017 Charlotte New Music Festival Speedwriting Competition with Beo String Quartet. The pitches in question come from a brief textless melody that John Lennon sings after the "Woke up, fell out of bed" section of "A Day in the Life." The rhythms are stripped and the pitches themselves are microtonally inflected, using 72-EDO (Ezra Sims Arrows notation). A countermelody competes with the original melody and crosses over it as the two voices wind into a codetta filled with harmonics.

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This duet later won the 72-EDO representation as part of the Ball State University Xenharmonic Music Alliance Call for Scores. This win came with a brief residency with the Xenharmonic Music Alliance.