Decaphon for solo guitar

in rows of ten

Decaphon is my first ever large-scale composition. I completed it in 2014 while I was a student at SUNY Fredonia. It was inspired by a composition a friend and fellow student showed me called Ten Tone Tune by Dennis Turechek, which utilizes a tone row of ten pitches comprised of two pentatonic scales rooted a tritone apart. The pitch language was unlike anything I had heard, and it completely captivated me.

Like any music student being introduced to serialism, I was fascinated by the techniques, and the idea of using ten-tone rows instead of the typical twelve was so interesting. I began to experiment and sift through the possibilities such an approach yielded, and ultimately ended up with the composition you hold before you.

I could provide you with an in-depth analysis of this piece and point out all the interesting mathematical relationships, development of ideas, textures, and so on, but I would rather you simply enjoy the music for what it is and look past the methods involved in creating it. If you're curious enough to want to learn it, surely you're curious enough to conduct your own analysis if desired.

Decaphon is not the original title. I first performed it on my senior recital under the title Ten Tone Fantasy, mainly because there were two other fantasies on my program and I was trying to make a theme of it. The new title effectively means “ten tone”.

Two versions of the score are included: one in standard notation only, and one in standard notation with tablature.

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