Death Stick (2019)

for solo soprano saxophone

*Death Stick will be premiered in March 2020 at the North American Saxophone Alliance Biennial Conference in Tempe, AZ.

Download a .pdf of the score here.

Program Note:

I have long maintained the position that the soprano saxophone can sound beautiful, especially in the hands of saxophone luminaries Vincent David or Gerard McChrystal. However, there is no denying that many people playing soprano saxophone sound, to quote my girlfriend (a violinist), ‘like a dying goose.’ When I was asked to write a piece for unaccompanied soprano saxophone, I saw an opportunity to tap into the edgier side of the instrument’s timbre.

In the early planning stages of writing the piece, I watched what can only be considered George Lucas’s magnum opus: Star Wars, Episode II: Attack of the Clones. In an early scene in a dirty bar, Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi is approached by a seedy individual (who true fans of the saga will recognize as Elan Sel'Sabagno) in what would turn out to be the least unnecessary dialogue in the entire Star Wars saga. The exchange goes as follows:

Sel’Sabagno:                                        You wanna buy some death sticks?

Kenobi (using a Jedi mind trick):             You don’t want to sell me death sticks.

Sel’Sabagno:                                        I don’t wanna sell you death sticks.

Kenobi (still using the mind trick):          You want to go home and re-think your life.

Sel’Sabagno:                                       I wanna go home and re-think my life. (Exits)

I instantly made the connection that idea of a ‘death stick’ closely matched my plan for a snarling soprano saxophone piece (especially since most saxophonists play straight-bodied soprano saxophones), and I decided that I would construct a tryptic based on Sel’Sabagno’s legendary dialogue. Death Stick is therefore in three ‘episodes,’ each of which flows without pause into the next:

I)                You wanna buy some death sticks?

II)               I don’t wanna sell you death sticks

III)              I wanna go home, and re-think my life

In practical terms, Death Stick is an exploration of tension in music. The opening episode, ‘You wanna buy some death sticks?’ establishes a high degree of tension, attempting to capture the atmosphere of a dirty bar, and the anxiety of being approached by a stranger in such an environment. ‘I don’t wanna sell you death sticks’ eases off the tension, as any danger posed by being approached by someone attempting to sell you death sticks has been avoided. The final episode, ‘I wanna go home, and re-think my life’ presented me with a challenge: this point in the dialogue would typically point to the moment of least tension, but this would lead to a bizarre tension curve between the three episodes (most tension to less tension to even less tension), which did not match my mental image of the piece, so I instead decided to lean more into the ‘re-think my life’ angle of this statement, and present the performer with a fiercely difficult finale meant to have them thinking ‘I wanna go home and re-think my life.’