With a dull instrument, the harmonics die out, but with a sustaining instrument, the harmonics continue to sound along with the fundamental note.
Their movements are precise and specific, each action exemplifying a verb, as Mr. Turnage's vibrantly rhythmic score, played live by the Undance Band, sings out with melodic swoops from the woodwinds and sustained wind instrument lines.
They are often sung in the form of leader and chorus, and the musical accompaniment, if any, is generally provided by drone instruments (those sustaining or reiterating a given note or notes), usually of the lute family, or percussion instruments, such as drums, clappers, and pairs of cymbals.
The work is essentially one musical gesture incessantly repeated with the soloist sustaining various hand percussion instruments over a droning orchestra.
World Tour also adds an open string note for bass players, represented by a line across the fret instead of any note gems, that is played by strumming without holding down any fret buttons (the sixth installment, Warriors of Rock, features an open note sustain for bass instruments as well).
In Samuel Barber's "Green Lowland of Pianos," with its surreal images of a herd of black pianos lying down like cows "during the artistic milking," Mr. Shimoni managed, with deft use of the sustaining pedal, to make his instrument moo.
For example, in one section of the work, as Mr. Stevens played hand and arm clusters on a piano from a standing position and Mr. Werner drew the detached silk hairs through the strings of the piano to create plaintive whimpers of sound, the sustaining foot pedal on the instrument had to be held down somehow.
In Judd Greenstein's "We Shall Be Turned," played later, Mr. Solomon made the considerable challenge of sustaining smooth legato lines across disparate instruments seem effortless.
Vocal or instrumental, it is accompanied by a drone (sustained-tone) instrument and often also by a melodic instrument that repeats the soloist's phrases after a lag of a few seconds.
