Artist Bio
Clarence is a pianist and composer based in the Greater Western Sydney area. Drawing aesthetic influence from jazz, blues, and jazz fusion, his music experiments with harmonic, structural, and rhythmic frameworks. Beyond his own work, Clarence is always pushing to expand his limits as a collaborator and performer.
Artist Statement
My project, Sawtooth, is an experimental composition for piano, bass, and drums. Performed (both live and for video recording) by myself, Bassist Miranda Green and Drummer Riley Geer, the piece is built around variations of a central theme.
The theme – conceptualised as a set of scale degrees, rather than a specific melody – is over the course of the piece transposed into different modes with the shared tonic E. The title is derived from the ‘sawtooth’ motion of this modal transposition, where the melody and harmony gradually increase in ‘brightness’ before they jump back to their starting point.
My intention behind Sawtooth is to use the theme as a way to tie the piece’s different sections together, while the composition’s musical ‘surprises’ keep the theme from becoming bland, creating a middle ground between familiarity and experimentation.