click to enlarge
solo tenor saxphone
1996
6 minutes
Excerpt played by Barry Cockcroft
Beat me,
Beat me softer,
Beat me faster,
Beat me harder,
Just beat me!
I wrote ‘Beat Me’ as a kind of sequel or big brother piece to my earlier composition ‘Black & Blue‘. I guess if you put them together, you get Beat Me Black & Blue! (See also ‘Slap Me‘ and ‘Rock Me‘ for the complete series).
This work extends the idea of the alto piece and makes use of different kinds of slap tonguing to simulate bass guitar, multiphonics to simulate the I, IV, V progression from ‘Wild Thing’ made famous by Jimi Hendrix, more distortion to emulate the electric guitar, an extended circular breathing passage that is reminiscent of digideroo playing and of course an extended drum solo overlaid with a bass guitar riff. This was my first composition to explore the idea of getting the saxophonist to do more than one thing at time – sing and play, play notes while beating the keys and play notes and harmonics simultaneously etc. Beat Me has been widely performed around the world and is particularly popular in Germany and the USA.
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Where can I get a copy of this? I am planning a senior recital for next semester, and would LOVE to give this a shot. If someone knows where I get a copy of this ASAP, please let me know
thank you
Hi Britney,
You can get hold of this here:
regards,
Barry
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Hey,
I just started working on Beat Me, and it is a sweet piece.
I really just wanted to say I dig your music as a young composer, and as a young player. I started out on Clarinet, which is still my “Classical” horn, but I concentrate most of my time on Tenor, mainly Jazz. I’m planning on majoring in Music of some type, and the techniques required in your pieces are kicking my butt, but it’s better now than in college. You really have a masterful command of both the Sax and the Clarinet, and your composing successfully combines Jazz and Classical elements…which is really saying something. My dad is a Symphonic conductor and we’ve both been trying to find pieces that aren’t…well crap…that combine Jazz and Classical for along time, and it’s nice to see someone doing it well.
Thanks for writing sweet pieces,
Jared Giunta
P.S. your style of composing-improvising till it sticks- really has helped me write things quicker…it’s a lot easier at the instrument.
AMAZING PIECE!!!!