The Reality of Illusions
For Solo Clarinet and Fixed Media
Length- 7:00 Minutes
Program Notes-
In my generation, we have grown up in the digital age when everybody can access technology daily. Whether it is checking social media, streaming content, or “Asking Google,” everybody finds a need for this medium to help fulfil or complete their daily life. What happens when we rely on technology to provide answers? Instead of trusting our friends, family, and humanity, we sometimes look to a system of 0s and 1s to solve our issues and concerns. This piece explores the relationship between the virtual world (Fixed Media) and the natural world (Clarinet).
 
For text, I asked my friends to provide existential questions that they had contemplated either with another human, or through a search engine. From there, I sorted through the questions to create a progression where the questions become lighter in tone to much heavier, replicating how a person could follow down a rabbit hole into the reality of our existence. The lyrics are then heard through the fixed media as if someone were typing the words live. Each letter of the alphabet is associated with a frequency that fits within the octaves of G3-G5. This text is what binds the piece together and provides closure. The clarinet throughout the piece starts as an accompaniment to the electronics but becomes more enveloped in the sound of the electronics, representing the continuing emphasis of a reliance on technology.