Setting the World at five and seven

arranged for violin and cello (2019), 4’

“Since the two parts for Setting the World at Five and Seven are essentially in different time signatures (one with five beats per measure—for the most part—and the other with seven), the only meaningful meter to indicate for Setting the World at Five and Seven is 1:1, since the two parts always share the same downbeat. Therefore a metronome marking of whole note equals 30 means that the cello’s quintuplets go by at 150 and the violin’s septuplets go by at 210. This polyrhythm temporarily resolves to both instruments playing parallel septuplets, but this is merely to prepare for a metrical modulation to a situation where the cello’s subsequent quintuplets are at 210, making the violinist’s septuplets speed up to 274, hence the overall whole note equal 42. Eventually the parallel septuplets return to prepare for a reverse metrical modulation back to the original tempo. To keep listeners focused on this polyrhythm, the pitches are limited to a pentatonic scale (although that’s a 5 as well) and the harmonic progression is a standard 12-bar blues although it probably won’t sound like a blues to most people.”