Skin and Alloy for Multi-Percussion

 

In the Winter of 2021, I was approached by Western Michigan University percussion student, Joshua Bowling, to commission a new Multi-Percussion solo for his junior recital. In our discussion, Josh mentioned to me that he was intrigued by the duality of metal sounds vs drum sounds. I decided to explore this idea and make it the theme of the piece. 

The title, “Skin and Alloy”, refers to the instrumentation of the piece which consists of various drums (Skin) as well as cymbals/crashers/tin cans (Alloy). The piece is written in three major sections: Section 1 utilizes only the drums in the setup, section 2 utilizes only the metal voices in the setup, and section 3 puts them both together. The piece is fairly energetic, but also exploits some finesse and nuance that the drums and metals are capable of.

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