Forty

Burnell, Paul

About the work

After coming up with a chord sequence on the guitar, I wrote it down as a chord picture. Many guitarists are familiar with chord pictures even if they are not familiar with notation on staves. The piece is written entirely in chord pictures, for all instruments. There are forty such pictures in the piece.

Technical notes

The guitars are essential. If a flexible ensemble plays with the guitars, the ensemble should almost never ‘drown-out’ the guitars, and should play sympathetically. Quieter instruments would be best, but amplification of the guitars would make it easier to use a larger and more ‘aggressive’ ensemble.