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The Life of a

Flower
For Solo Piano

Derek Cooper

(2014)

Derek Cooper Music Publishing

The Life of a Flower

By Derek Cooper
For Solo Piano
Program Notes:
"The Life of a Flower" was conceived by guidelines given to me for the
overnight assignment as part of the audition process at the Manhattan School of
Music for entrance into their DMA program. The guideline given was to use the
opening chord from The Beatle's hit song, "A Hard Day's Night." The chord is
shown below in two different variations. The first notable characteristic of this
chord is that all of the notes are from a pentatonic scale. Therefore, I immediately
began considering the challenges of writing a 21st century piece while basing it
upon a pentatonic scale. Typically, I use dissonances in order to create tension in
my music and push the excitement forward. However, when using the pentatonic
scale, there are no in the way of minor seconds. And so, if I wanted to stay true to
my challenge, I needed to find another way to create tension in this piece.

The pentatonic scale lead me to think of South East Asia where the scale is
commonly used. There, tension is often discovered through nasally, direct, and

sometimes harsh timbres instead of dense harmonies. Therefore, I began to think of


ways that I could affect the timbre of the piano instead in order to create this
tension. I found a number of extended techniques that fell into my aesthetic that I
could use to make an otherwise conservative sounding scale into something much
more colorful. Of course, i added other sonorities as well, but in relative scarcity.
As I began to realize the piece in my head, I pictured a flower with bees
flying around it. The concept of naming the music after something in nature is
parallel to the South East Asian tendency to name music to emotions and/or
aspects of nature. This flower, at the beginning of the piece, is closed and still
coming out of the ground. Just like the small cluster that begins the piece. As the
piece continues, we hear the flower slowly blossom, attracting bees to its pedals in
the middle of the piece. As the piece concludes, the flower's life begins to end as it
closes again and wilts, softly dying. The repeating chord at the end, which is the
exact assigned chord in both pitch and register, gives a sense of resolution as the
flower realizes that its life was not in vain as it was able to contribute pollen to the
bees as well as create seeds for new flowers to have life.

Approx. Duration: 15 minutes

The Life of a Flower

By Derek Cooper
For Solo Piano
Notes to the performer:

-The score will need to be memorized since the music stand will need to be
removed in order to play inside the piano
-For this piece, the performer will need:
- a small chisel with a thin blade approximately 1 inch or 2.5 cm wide
(enough to cover the strings of a
M2 apart)
- a hard rubber xylophone mallet
- a guitar pick or something similar to pluck the strings with
-In measure 1, the chord should not be heard. Instead, the notes should be
suppressed so that the sostenuto pedal can effect the given pitches. The sostenuto
pedal should remain down until measure 11.
-Starting in measure 16, the left hand should move the blade of the chisel away
from the performer on the strings of the given pitches, creating harmonics going
up, indicated by the up arrow. In measure 17, the opposite should be done,
indicated now by a down arrow. (See symbol legend below)
-In measure 96, use the hard rubber xylophone mallet in your left hand to glissando
down the top section of strings inside the piano. The ball of the mallet should
glissando between the bridge and the hitch pin. (This is the furthest section of the
exposed string) The top section of section of strings can be defined as the area

from the furthest right inner stress bar until the right edge of the piano. Repeat this
technique throughout whenever this is seen.
-In
In measure 124, strike the lowest strings inside the piano with your left palm
while letting the cover of the keyboard fall open after closing it just a bit. Make
sure that the sustain pedal is depressed when you do this to allow the echo of the
bang to occur inside the piano.

Symbol Legend:

- Release the sotenuto pedal

- Move chisel away from you on given string(s) inside the piano,
making the harmonics go up. (This will, of course, cover strings other than tthose
notated, which is intended.)

- Move chisel away towards you on given string(s) inside the piano,
making the harmonics go down. (This will, of course, cover strings other than
those
ose notated, which is intended.)

Approx. Duration: 4' 30"


Written for the overnight assignment as part of the
MSM audition for the DMA program

The Life of a Flower


For Solo Piano

q = 120

Derek Cooper (b. 1987)

ppp

niente

Sost. Ped.

ppp

niente

ppp

Forearm cluster
Pitches are approximate

fff

16

rit.

pp

niente

cresc. poco a poco until loudest possible volume is reached

20"

Grab Chisel with left hand

q=90

subito

Copyright Derek Cooper Music 2014

2
24

32

40

Put down chisel

Pick up guitar pick in right hand


48

accel.

cresc. poco a poco

ord.

53

q=132

57

R.H. play on the string inside the piano with guitar pick

62

68

cresc. poco a poco

Grab Chisel with left hand


74

ord. (Keep pick in hand)

4
79

84

89

Put down chisel

93



ord.

with hard rubber xylophone


mallet inside piano

5
97

103

109

115








dim. poco a poco

6
Put guitar pick down quickly

121

q=120

30"

cresc. poco a poco until loudest possible volume is reached

Hit the side of stress bars with


hard rubber xylophone mallet freely

q=90

124 Allow keyboard cover to bang open

fff

dim. poco a poco

Hit bottom strings inside piano with palm

129

ppp

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