Scored for six performers;
Flute, Bb Clarinet, Violin, Cello, Percussion (Timps & Xylophone), & Piano
Duration: 5′ 00″
PDF Score here.

Notes On time:
Everything is an emergent illusory perception derived from sensory experience & everything is musical (temporal). Cognition of all music & sound is reliant on temporal memory ™ and/or the transitive nature of particles (the constituent elements of sound), both internally (due to the vibration of neural substrates that may constitute memory – if not reality, the interaction/transition between thought & sound) & externally (as with the standard physical model that requires an “elastic” medium). Time (t) is thus experienced as a combination of experienced time (et) and tm: t = et/tm.
Time (t) dilates, experienced time (et) doesn’t, only by strictly adhering to tempi can one be engaged with the kinetic potential of both.

Notes On Central reciprocity and isomorphic (LIE) scales of linear expansion:
Observe a cloud of midges on a sunny day before twilight and at some point they may exhibit predominantly vertical flight behaviors. Focus on one descending and all you will see is those that descend, and visa versa. This is a visual representation of the auditory scale illusion, one that relies on perception and central reciprocity. As with the midges example, with regard to auditory perception, focusing on any particular instrument (or combination of instruments) should provide a different experience on each listening.

D1-(D4)-D7 LIE Scale:
+1+2+3… isomorphic expansion from D4:
D1, Bb1, F2, B2, E3, G#3, B3, C#4, D4, Eb4, F4, G#4, C5, F5, B5, F#6, D7
+1+2+3… Ascending from D1: D1, Eb1, F1, G#1, C2, F2, B2, F#3, D4, B4, A5, G#6, G#7
+1+2+3… Descending from D7: (G#0) G#1, G2, F3, D4, Bb4, F5, B5, E6, G#6, B6, C#7, D7
Complete scale:
D1, Eb1, F1, G#1, Bb1, C2, F2, G2, B2, E3, F3, F#3, G#3, B3, C#4, D4, Eb4, F4, G#4, Bb4, B4, C5, F5, A5, B5, E6, F#6, G#6, B6, C#7, D7, G#7
Isomorphic IC sequence:
(6) 1, 2, 3, 2, 2, 5, 2, 4, 5, 1, 1, 2, 3, 2, 1 | 1, 2, 3, 2, 1, 1, 5, 4, 2, 5, 2, 2, 3, 2, 1 (6)

Notes on structure:
“Content derives its reality from its structure, and what is called form is the “structuring” of local structures, which are called content” ¹. “Only in coming to grips with the aesthetic apparatus and the categories that determine it, can self-knowledge and musical expression come about. Only then can the experience of freedom be artistically communicated as reality (with its distinguishing contradictions) and become conscious.” ² “All music should be an invitation to rethink music… art should be understood, and enjoyed, as a world that hasn’t been infected by commercialism… “When that happens, listening becomes thinking… and where there’s thought, there’s resistance… composers can’t be afraid to use the term art… and to come as close to a definition as they can.” ³

On Ian Dury’s seminal album “New Boots & Panties” (1977), the phrase “laughing, laughing…” is incessantly repeated. This semi-tonal refrain has stuck in my head for many years, and here worked it’s way out in the string parts.
“… the purity and depth of my disdain… look at them laughing, laughing, laughing, luaghing…” (Ian Dury)

1/ Claude Levi-Strauss in Boulez, P. Orientations, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1985, trans. by Martin Cooper, pg.90.
2/ Helmut Lachenmann’s theory of ‘Dialectical Structuralism’ (PAGE 113) (http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/4059/1/4059_1576.pdf
3/ An Interview with Helmut Lachenmann Translated from the German by Jeffrey Arlo Brown • Date 09/29/2016 (https://van-us.atavist.com/lachenmann)