Talisman: The essay and the computer codes. (Original composition);

Talisman is a musical composition composed for digital realization. The compositional process involved two actually inseparable, but conceptually distinct aspects, the first of which is the temporal design whose basic increments and indices are the familiar equal-tempered partition of the frequency spectrum, and the second of which is the articulation and inflection of this temporal design by digital "instruments" whose spectral components change according to their instructions which are programmed to respond to the syntax of the temporal design. As a consequence, all changes affecting the instrumentation are an elaboration of the temporal design which is the basic syntax of the piece.

The temporal design or basic syntax itself is based on modular rhythmic deployments of transformations of a nine-element pitch-class interval field. The strategy behind the deployments of the field transformations is reciprocally to articulate and inflect the rhythmic deployment with combinational procedures whose natural saturation limit is the attainment of the aggregate and whose varied transformations are implemented to provide contrast among larger-scale rhythmic deployments of varying degrees of similitude.

The basic syntax ultimately represents a transformational trajectory, which is to say a predominantly open temporal trajectory as opposed to a closed trajectory. While certain residual closure operations remain, their perduration in this work is intended to provide a minimal constant index against which the transformations can be contrasted and accordingly measured. The goal of all of this then, is to model an irreversible process, or, in effect, ride "the arrow of Time".