Program Notes

Hiccups explores the phenomenon that disrupts speech and breathing in irregular ways. It captures the sudden, unpredictable moments of hiccups while also revealing their distinctive sense of return. The work began with a simple question: What triggers hiccups, and how do they stop?

Through techniques such as reverb, delay and feedback, this piece expands the repetition and transformation of sound along a time axis within a four-channel space. In parallel, it uses Professor John Gibson’s Spectral Delay to unfold timbral repetitions and shifts along a spectrum axis, where changes emerge from within the sound’s frequency content itself. The work’s overall breath is carried by smooth grains generated from clarinet key clicks, which form an organically flowing textural layer that guides the piece from start to finish.