The central sound of closer than you think is a kind of multiphonic or bow harmonic achieved through specific combinations of bow placement, speed, and pressure that are specific to each instrument. The resulting sound is exceptionally fragile and, I think, beautiful: the harmonics coexist with a more “grounded” pitch, and flicker in and out of clarity and presence. The piece is about trying to grasp and follow that sound as much as possible, with the understanding that we’ll all fall short of it often, either pulling out the “wrong” harmonic or losing it entirely.

When I wrote the initial version of this material in 2018, I thought that the piece was purely about that sound. In what I’m sure was a total coincidence, I was concurrently becoming aware of my overwhelming desire to reach for something that felt fragile, magical, and potentially unattainable: my own womanhood. Since I began transitioning last year, I’ve been reevaluating my own relationship with my music and realized how much of its role in my life was as an outlet for unnamable yearnings, many of which are tied to my transsexuality; this piece concentrates those feelings more than perhaps any of my other music. With the benefit of hindsight, I now know that closer than you think is about reaching for a way of being that is at once intuitive and natural, unknown and off-limits, gradually learning how to exist without much of a roadmap, and doing it in community with others.

– Sophie McMillan-Myers

Dylan Feldpausch and Zach Buehler, violin • Sophie McMillan-Myers, viola • J Holzen, cello