Earth-Flowering –Time Colin Bright , Reed Music 57 openning three bars. Fig. 0.3

Bright’s music has an improvised feel about it.As a jazz pianist I interpret the repetitive rhythmic motif in the left hand as a ‘riff’, over which a jazz pianist would create improvised variations with the right hand. Bright describes the technique of his piece as STASIS, by which I understand he is referring to the stationary or static repetition of the low motif, and its conversation with the right hand motifs, which depict the colourful patterns and growth of the small desert wildflowers flowers, coming up out of an aged and dark earth. The dark elements of the Phrygian mode are repeatedly apparent in the low motif, and the bright harmonic element of the mode are portrayed in the right hand gestures. This mode was used by European musicians in the late 18th century in their transcriptions of two Aboriginal chants of the Sydney region, see Barrabul-la in chapter six. I use the Sydney chants as a primary source for my collaborative music projects with Aboriginal musicians and the soundscape of the Stuart piano.

Etym along (1984) by Ross Edwards is track 4 on the Alternating Currents CDrecording by Bernadette Harvey.Eminent Australian composer Ross Edwards described his piece in an address to the Conference On Belonging⁵⁸ , recounting the musical transformation he experienced at Etymalong. This was a time for collecting his new musical language. He thanks the sounds of the nature-scape of the place, –

….these ancient voices, whose near-symmetries and inconsistently varied
repetitions often seem close to our inherited musical syntax. I don’t doubt
that, over the millenia, such voices have generated much of the world’s
music and it’s not hard to detect their presence in various surviving folk and
religious traditions. ⁵⁹

Etym along is an Aboriginal word meaning watering place and is at the
same tie the name given to the mountain overlooking the village of Pearl
Beach, NSW. In this once sacred place I lived with my family …
and composed, amongst other music, a series of static, evanescent works
much influenced by the sounds of the natural environment.⁶⁰

⁵⁷Colin Bright, “Earth Flowering Time For Piano” In Three Piano Solos (Fitzroy VIC: Reed Music, 2010)
http://www.reedmusic.com/composer/b-composers/bright-colin/
⁵⁸Ross Edwards, “Address To The Conference On Belonging,” Ross Edwards. 2015.
http://www.rossedwards.com/publicity/address-to-the-conference-on-belonging/
^{59     2}Ross Edwards 2015.
^{60     2}Hannan, Etymalong for Piano,