Gone, Dog. Gone! (2012)
Percussion duo. Commissioned by the Australian duo The Sound Collectors.
Gone, Dog. Gone! is, conceptually-speaking, a companion piece to Go, Dog. Go! (1997) and Aphasia (2010). From the former it borrows the idea of rapidly juxtaposed tempi and rhythms extracted from extant popular music recordings. From the latter it employs a nonsense sign language of hand gestures synchronized to sound.
Eight instruments—selected by the players—are arrayed between them and shared. They are numbered from each player’s perspective so that when a material articulated by Player 1 is later articulated by Player 2, the timbres all change.
Experimental | Why Experimental?
Here is a link to the premiere performance by The Sound Collectors, the nimble Australian duo of Louise Devenish and Leah Scholes who commissioned it. Although they chose not to perform the shouted vocalizations in the premiere, this performance is convincing. One may find other excellent alternatives on YouTube.