Paul Sanho Kim

Serial Jazz Cello

for cello (2003)

Duration: 2.5′

I wrote Serial Jazz Cello while experimenting with twelve-tone techniques as a student. I thought it would be fun to see whether I could follow basic twelve-tone rules of composition while also making the music sound as tonal as possible. This short piece was the result. The music is completely written out, so there is nothing jazzy about it in an improvisatory sense, but the loose swing rhythm serves as a reminder that serialism and other compositional techniques need not be taken too seriously… or rather, that seriously conceived structures can still be made fun.