Needle Drop (2025)

Needle Drop (2025) was inspired by techniques used by DJs who perform with turntables. One of the central ideas of the piece comes from scratching, a technique in which a vinyl record is moved back and forth under the needle while the turntable is running. DJs also use a mixer to turn the sound on and off in rhythm with this motion. These actions create sounds that feel physical, direct, and closely connected to the movement of the hands.

Rather than copying these sounds exactly, I translated their gestures into musical ideas. Short, repeated motifs and quick glissandos reflect the sharp and energetic character of scratching. By changing the register of these gestures, and by stretching or compressing their length, the material gradually takes on new shapes. As the music develops, repetition allows small changes to become more noticeable.

The piece is based on four main musical ideas. The first is a group of short, intense glissandos that suggest the sound and motion of scratching. The second idea uses repeated notes distributed across the ensemble to create a sense of spatial movement, as if the sound is moving from left to right and back again.

The remaining two ideas are melodic lines. One begins with an ascending minor triad arpeggio, and the other with a descending stepwise motion. These ideas appear many times throughout the piece, each time slightly transformed, and are shaped by constantly shifting meters, giving the music a flexible and unsettled sense of time.