Time-Laps(e)
General Info
Year of Published: 2025
Publisher: C. Alan Publications
Difficulty: Advanced
Duration: 00:04:25
Cost: $18.00
Instrumentation
Program Notes
Time Laps(e) explores the concept of phasing, where a melody or rhythm loops around itself. As layers drift apart and return to unison, the effect mirrors a runner lapping another on a track. This sense of circular motion and shifting alignment echoes the visual rhythm of a time-lapse, which inspired the piece’s title and structure.
The work condenses a wealth of material into four minutes while maintaining musical clarity. All ideas stem from a single motif, developed across four sections. Each section uses a different subdivision of the half note, decreasing rhythmic emphasis while increasing rhythmic density over time: eighth note triplets, quintuplets, straight eighths, and finally quarter note triplets. In result, the return of early material in the final section feels stretched and transformed.
Accompanying the music is a video of time-lapse footage, reinforcing the piece’s central metaphor. Together with the fixed media, the visual element deepens the illusion of time both suspended and steadily advancing. As rhythmic layers unfold and re-align, and the video compresses hours into seconds, the piece evokes a kind of temporal dissonance: where motion feels constant but meaningfully detached. The result is meditative yet elusive, capturing the quiet tension between stillness and progress, presence and impermanence all to ask one question: “What does time feel like when we stop measuring it?”
Works for Percussion by this Composer
Solo Works
Electric Cathedral - Malletstation
Back Pocket - Multiple Percussion
The Test of Time - Marimba; Piano
Time-Laps(e) - Snare DERum
Ensemble Works
Aequilibrium - 5 Players
Cosmic Lighthouse - 8 Players
Hymn - 4 Players
Number Theory (Volume 1) - 5 Players
Number Theory (Volume 2) - 6 Players
Sentinel - 4 Players
Tour de Force - 12 Players