March | 2015 | Georgia Rodgers

Composition for solo tuba and four channel electronics. Partial Filter was developed in collaboration with Oren Marshall as part of the Sound and Music Next Wave project 2014.

My aim in this piece was to approach the tuba from an unusual angle in order to reveal hidden characteristics and really explore its sound world. I’ve concentrated on the sound made when the player breathes through the tuba without playing a pitch – a filtering of air through the volume of the instrument. Electronic processing techniques are used to magnify these sounds and focus in on the slight changes in grain which occur when the player make tiny adjustments to his breathing. Later we arrive at simple pitched sounds which swell and fill the space, before returning to filtered noise. I value a slow approach to listening. I think that our awareness of the morphology of a sound is heightened when it unfolds gradually.

It was premiered at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music festival by Pete Smith, and performed at Cafe Oto by David Powell in March 2015.

Andy Hamilton included these kind words in his review of Huddersfield 2014 for Tempo (April 2015) “Georgia Rodgers’ partial filter stood out as the concentrated, intense exploration of a single idea.”