Crawling on...crawling within

Written for solo flute (2017) | ~4:00 - 5:00

Program Notes

The piece was inspired by the sense of feeling and tricks that mind plays on a person. I had friends tell me how my music would make them feel happy, sad, angry, mellow, or even confused. But the adjectives they used to describe were all emotionally attached feelings. I wanted to write a piece that would instill a sense of emotional and physical awareness. During one of my classes, someone mentioned to me that they thought there was a bug crawling on her and how she hated having that sensation because it would make her feel like she had them inside her too. 
This almost nauseating feeling is known as formication, which is the sensation of something crawling on you or inside of you. 
I found my inspiration and began to write. 
The piece uses a set of unconventional and odd merging of extended techniques while having constantly changing tempos and meter to free meter changes, thus giving an unstable and agitated performance.
I purposely added a merging of humming/singing and flutter tonguing as both techniques begin to vibrate the lower half of the face, giving the performer the almost equivalency of creepy critters crawling on and within their own skin.