UCLA

Music for trombone and electroacoustic sounds is very underutilized in the mainstream world today. There is a need for musicians to preserve and protect music composed using the technology of the past because tapes are disintegrating and notable compositions are being lost. The most frequently performed pieces in the genre of trombone and pre-recorded tape are not challenging enough to train the advanced skills necessary to perform other works. Skills required to play these pieces such as reading graphical scores, playing in extreme ranges of the instrument, performing difficult extended techniques, synchronizing with an abstract tape, and making ethereal sounds into something tangible and enjoyable for the audience, are only learnable by studying and performing advanced abstract compositions. Sound the Tucket Sonance and the Note to Mount by Barry Anderson is an exemplary model of a piece that enables the trombonists to explore advanced playing techniques and to learn how to work in the medium of pre-recorded tape and acoustic performance. Sound the Tucket is the ideal companion piece to Luciano Berio's Sequenza V and has the potential to be a more manageable introduction to the notational style. The information in this document is crucial to informed and successful performances of Sound the Tucket Sonance and the Note to Mount. The analysis of the inner-workings of this piece has shown that it is a highly intellectual composition that shows remarkable cohesiveness throughout the sections. This piece is an unyielding journey towards an imminent confrontation between a variety of possible opponents. In this dissertation, I advocate for the inclusion of Barry Anderson's composition in the standard repertoire of pieces for trombone.