HOPE: MUSICAL INTERPLAY IN MORSE CODE

Solo Electric Guitar

Duration: 9 minutes

Program notes

“Hope: Musical Interplay in Morse Code” is an attempt to use the standard telecommunication code known as Morse Code to generate musical material from the use of the letters of the word “Hope”. To achieve this, I listed out the standard 26 letter alphabet and went in ascending pitch order matching A to A, B to A#, C to B, D to C, etc, and repeated until the alphabet was created. From this, I created a tone row of E, B, C, C# (H-E, 0-B, P-C, E-C#). I also decided to build a rhythmic cell using the signal dashes that Morse Code uses such as “dits” and “dahs”. For the “dits” I used 16th notes. For the “dahs”, I used 8th notes because of the length in duration. I then had all the material I needed and started to work on the material from there. 

This was also my first exploration into what the electric guitar was capable of. With the assistance of esteemed composer Andrew Noseworthy (@anmusiccomposer) vis-à-vis the Tuckamore Lifelong Learning Program, I was able to explore all sorts of possibilities I never knew existed. He helped me explore the instrument in ways I had considered and which ways I had not. I also explored idiomatic writing for the guitar to give me a baseline that has tremendous carryover into writing for later works involving guitar. As such, this is also the first work I’ve written in a virtuosic setting for solo instrument and it was tremendously helpful to have tips on how to write for a solo player, interpretations, what instrumentalists like, what they don’t like, etc.