Works / Comissions
Clacky Thocky Poppy is a percussion piece for three computer keyboards,
inspired by the internet's obsession with mechanical keyboards. These terms - "clacky," "thocky," and "poppy" - are immensely popular across forums and videos, used to describe the nuanced sounds of keyboard switches and the
endless quest for perfect auditory satisfaction. The mechanical keyboard market, valued at over $2 billion in 2023, reflects a booming demand for customisation, often leading customers to frequent upgrades and discarded
components. This contributes to the 62 million tonnes of e-waste generated globally each year. For this piece, the keyboards used were reused from second-hand sources.
“ When reflecting on Eva Rovers' question, "How can we be good ancestors?" I immediately thought about the importance of awareness - specifically, awareness of time. In order to think of ways to make the future better, we need to learn from the past. While thinking of the future and past, we can't get too lost and forget about the present.
In this piece, I aimed to illustrate this idea with three percussionists representing the past, present, and future, all moving like parts of a clock. The past and future shift at different speeds, while the present tries to find its place between them. At times, this looking back and forth creates a sense of disorientation, much like how it can feel overwhelming to think about the impact of our decisions on future generations.
The piece ends with the future catching up to the past, highlighting the ambiguity of time and the importance of finding balance. I believe that being truly present is the best way to positively impact the future.”
If it's true that a good musician can make music on anything, this is my attempt to prove it. To counteract the frequent percussionist's nightmare of needing truckloads of different instruments for every performance, which then often are not even used enough in the piece to justify the hassle of having them with you, I wanted to challenge myself to write my new work for this wonderful young percussion trio in a way that everything needed to perform it fits into one small backpack. The lack of instruments, except for three fairly standard kalimbas available in most music shops, puts a fair amount of additional strain on the performers, which probably will have to invest serious studying time into mastering the employed techniques until the required level for this piece is reached. On the up side though, they'll be able to perform a real piece with close to nothing at hand - hence the title of the piece. And I'm sure that when the piece is done right, it will work as a powerful and surprisingly rich addition to any concert program, and double as a neat party trick for three percussionists.
Even though the given order and connection of the different sections of the piece in this score makes perfect sense as it is, it is my explicit intention to add new sections to the piece in the future, which will be possible to combine freely as long as their new order makes sense. For example, only the kalimba sections or only the sections without kalimbas can be performed together as a shorter or longer interlude or encore.
I plan to create a big brother for this piece in the future, where the minimalism of this orchestration is taken to the other extreme, and the music is performed on the traditional, much larger arsenal of percussion instruments.