Tom Armstrong’s Dance Maze: Variations for Piano, Duos for Trumpet and Piano, and Solos for Trumpet is a trio of closely related pieces initially composed in 1994 as a solo piano piece and later revised in 2008 and 2017 using techniques described by Tom Johnson in Self-Similar Melodies. The reworked Dance Maze can be performed as a piano and trumpet duo, or the two parts can be detached and played as a piano solo or trumpet solo. In reworking the original Dance Maze for solo piano as Duos for Trumpet and Piano, Armstrong uses the technique of overpainting, in which new material alters the structure of existing material. Subsequent revisions, which Armstrong calls reworkings, are based on Johnson’s Self-Similar techniques, including Infinite Automation (based on the transformation n –> n, n + 1, n + 1^9) and Dragon Curve No. 9 (based on a paper folding fractal). Armstrong’s motivation for reworking Dance Maze was to respond to critiques of the original and to explore open compositional structures.

Works: Tom Armstrong: Dance Maze: Variations for Piano, Duos for Trumpet and Piano, and Solos for Trumpet (272-81)

Sources: Tom Armstrong: Dance Maze for Solo Piano (272-81)

Index Classifications: 2000s

Contributed by: Matthew Van Vleet