David Lumsdaine: Kangaroo Hunt (1971)

Abstract

"Kangaroo Hunt is two pages of music, one for a pianist, the other for a percussion player. The music on each page consists of a number of melodic fragments: some are like fragments of bird song; others like children's chanting. The fragments can be put together in different ways end to end, to produce ever changing but always recognisable melodies; or they can be played one over the other to produce degrees of tension and agreement in the resulting harmony, according to the choice of the players. There is one fragment which is a beginning and an end to the music. There is a longer fragment of dance which is also played by both instrumentalists (one has to call the other into the dance each time it is played), and this acts like a frame to the piece. The name of the music comes from an Aboriginal picture which I knew and loved as a child. It showed all the events of a kangaroo hunt, from the opening dance, through the chases and the spearing to the successful return of the hunters. There is no attempt to correlate temporal and spectral ordering. On the contrary, each event is presented in the one precisely delineated landscape which holds the events of the narrative in a timeless counterpoint." -- David Lumsdaine