Rock Paper Scissors by Russell Wharton

Rock Paper Scissors is a medium-advanced work for percussion quartet by Russell Wharton. In it, three types of instruments (wood, skin, and metal) are used to represent rock, paper, and scissors. Through the musical material, these instruments also have their own musical personalities. The woods play hocketed 16th notes, the skins play aggressive polyrhythms and the metals hint at a 5:4 metric modulation. Though in the end they maintain their individual characteristics, these sound families exert influence on one another, just like the classic score-settling game played by millions across the world.

This piece was composed for the Four/One Percussion Quartet (Mitchell Beck, Paul Millette, Steven Partida, and Russell Wharton) and was premiered at Indiana Unviersity on March 25, 2018. It also includes two unique sets of program notes, allowing listeners to decide which set they prefer.