Update Title: 49B67F0E-4FED-4EB7-BF22-FE4A2CA34C99

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As my title hints, the idea for this piece centers around rhythm, the time element in music. It is an exploration of the many interesting, quirky, off-kilter rhythms that can be derived by "stealing" tiny bits of time from a normal 4/4 measure.

And so the piece begins with a relentlessly regular 4/4 pattern. Very soon, however, a syncopated bass line and a dance-like melody in the clarinets and harp begin to fight with the downbeat. Eventually the strings emerge with a passage in 7/8 time. In other words, one eighth-note beat has been "stolen", and the music continues in that new meter.

Another eighth note disappears for a waltz-like 3/4 section, then to 5/8 (as if the waltzers have let one shoe come untied!), and 4/8 leading back to the pattern that began the piece. Next you will hear a rather funky bass line accompanying a passage in one of my favorite meters, 15/16 -- that is, a sixteenth note has here been "thieved" from the 4/4 measure. As this section subsides, a large chord strikes repeatedly once per measure. But each successive measure is one sixteenth-beat shorter, counting down from 16 to 15 to 14, and so forth until finally reaching zero!

And here, there are indeed no beats. Familiar patterns are played by the instruments, but all in their own tempos, creating, I hope, more of a wash of color and texture, or perhaps a sense of time suspended. A final CODA brings back the opening music in 4/4 time, but soon enough, one by one, eighth-note beats are stolen from each successive measure. With the tick-tock of a wood block marking the time, the opening clarinet and harp melody romps briefly through this short series of progressively plundered measures.

By the way, the title may remind you of the old saying, "Procrastination is the Thief of Time." Maybe you've heard that composers are notorious procrastinators, and thought that might be why I chose it. Perhaps some other day I can write something about that. --Peter Hamlin

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