The idea for Melisma came to me when I heard an old recording of a famous taqsim - a slow, non-rhythmic improvisatory piece in Greek folk music – by Tassos Chalkias, one of Greece's prominent folk clarinetists. Similar to the klezmer style of clarinet playing, this tradition hardly ever allows the sound to stay "in pitch" for any length of time, demanding instead nearly continuous pitch shifts and timbre modulations on most of the notes in a melody. Another characteristic of the Greek folk clarinet sound is the rather pronounced nasal quality of the chalumeau register where dramatic transitions from soft, dark timbres to piercing, forte ones are routine. Melisma begins with the Chalkias excerpt. My own music takes off at measure 12 and frequently returns to make short references to the original.
