Covidea I

  • for any instrument

  • Duration 45"

Covidea I is part of a set of pieces written in 2020, using the genome of COVID-19 as source material for musical notes. It can be played by any instrument.

Programme note

In "Covidea I", I've have taken just the first line of the genome sequence code for COVID-19 ("attaaaggtt tataccttcc caggtaacaa accaaccaac tttcgatctc ttgtagatct") to generate the first four bars (measures) of music. Each letter is played by a semiquaver (sixteenth-note). A, G and C are musical pitches, T is a rest. This material is then given simple variations and mutations: in bars 5-9 the notes are inverted, in 9-12 they're transposed down, and in 13-16 a few isolated notes are displaced by an octave. The moral of the story is that maybe something positive, or even good (well, at least not too unpleasant, musically speaking) can be made out of something bad. The piece lasts 45 seconds. Which is maybe the length of time it takes to read this paragraph!

sheet music for this piece is available free of charge