Follow Me Softly

Follow Me Softly, composed in 1984, compared with Solo, is a dramatically different approach to using the Synclavier. I composed Follow Me Softly specifically as an improvisational duet to perform with Jan Williams, percussionist.

In a performance, I was seated at a table, on the side of the performance space, typing on an alphanumeric keyboard while looking at a computer terminal. I could press a key and trigger many notes, or different sounds, or melodic figures, and in a wide variety of different ways influence the musical process that I had programmed earlier. The instrument followed my instructions instantaneously, and because it was so sensitive, I could improvise with it.

Jan Williams was center stage amidst a semi-circle of percussion instruments, among them vibraphone, marimba, timpani, tom-toms, various other drums, and a variety of woodblocks, temple blocks, and other small dry sounds. We improvised according to our one rule: imitate. I imitated Jan. He imitated me. And as leadership changed between us, the performance, and consequently the composition, took its form.

Although a general shape emerged from our working together with the sounds, every performance was different in detail. And every electronic sound, slightly different in its detail, blended in with the percussion sounds so well that it was hard to tell which sounds were electronic and which were acoustic. In fact, as I listened, I heard each performance as a single example of a powerful and sensitive instrument.

The first performance of Follow Me Softly took place on April 12, 1984, at the North American New Music Festival. This recording was done in November 1984 by Stephen Bradley at State University of New York at Buffalo.

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For other compositions, click on a title

Blues Mix 1966
Albany Music 3 1966
Jack in January 1967
Street Scene 1967

Drift 1970
Ideas of Movement at Bolton Landing 1971
Echoes 1972

From The 14th On 1973

Flowers 1975
Settings for Spirituals 1977

Solo 1978
Scenes from Stevens 1979
Follow Me Softly 1984

After Some Songs 1995
Spring Drum with Pierre’s Words 1997

Many Times … 2001
One World 1 2006
Micro Fictions 2009
Different Cities 2013