Scatterbrain by Paul Millette

Scatterbrain is a marimba quartet composed in the fall of 2016 for the Indiana University Percussion Ensemble. During the early stages of sketching ideas for the work, I decided that I wanted to create a compositional challenge for myself. The challenge was to write something that starkly contrasted my typical compositional style. Music I had written in the past tended to be very tonal, delicate, and simplistic in nature, while Scatterbrain is the complete opposite. The work is based around chromatically shifting between major triads, trading disjointed rhythmic ideas throughout the ensemble, and hocketing. The title comes from the scattered and rapidly changing nature of the harmonic, rhythmic, and textural content of the work. Scatterbrain is meant to showcase every expressive aspect of the marimba, from its ability to hum softly to its power and ferocity.