Journey To The Top Of The Looking Glass by Bradley S. Green published on 2014-10-04T19:32:30Z Journey to the Top of the Looking Glass was inspired by a sculpture of the same name by artist Kyle Van Lusk. The sculpture is built from a mixture of cast iron and steel, which was used to create the harmonic and melodic foundation of the composition. A hexachord was created both from the atomic weight of carbon (C) and iron (Fe) and their symbols. Using the correspondence of the atomic weight of the elements to the frequency of tonal notes in the equal temperament system and the symbols Fe and C, the hexachord (E F G A-flat A C) is created. The sculpture also strikes an interesting balance between rectilinear and curvilinear forms, which cause certain parts of the sculpture appear intentional while others appear coincidental. To represent this, a meter-less section marked "freely" is notated in which the materials for the performers are present, but it is ultimately up to them how the section is horizontally realized. The sculpture was created in response to the artist's experience hiking the Looking Glass Rock trail near Brevard, NC. He described it as "a fun experience, but hard and memorable." The piece is permeated by ascending melodic fragments that become more dissonant as the piece (and trail) progresses, only to resolve once the peak is reached. After a retrograde of the earlier ascending motives, the piece ends fittingly on measure 64, which corresponds to the 6.4 mile length of the trail. Genre bradley green