Bazaar Programme Notes by Gary Ryan

Bazaar ,is written for two guitars with a pre-recorded electronic loop station. The central ideas evolved over several years of experimentation and came from many diverse sources, one of these being the percussive effects created on a ‘prepared’ piano where objects are inserted between or rest on the strings inside the piano itself.

At various points during Bazaar the performers ‘select’ an item from a ‘stall’ in front of them and use it to create percussive effects. These include a tuning fork, spoons, pencils and ping pong balls!

The two guitars also ‘barter’ with each other, exchanging and repeating material in the manner of a market stall holder and customer. Percussive sounds are deliberately played in specific places so that the audience hopefully not only hears but sees the musical ideas pass between the two players.

When first triggered, the loop station plays the same material in reverse that is being simultaneously played ‘forwards’ by both guitars at the same point in the piece. Elements of the loop are shared between the players with material ‘panning’ across the central amplifier.

Bazaar is mainly written over a drone, with an episodic structure and four ‘still interludes’ acting as a ‘call to prayer’ which temporarily interrupts the flow. The piece also makes extensive use of the diminished or octotonic scale, a mode of limited transposition often used by Messaien. This consists of repeated semi-tone, tone steps and contains nine notes as opposed to the traditional eight in the octave of a major scale. The scale is then subtly altered in places to create different atmospheres and a sense of musical evolution.