The Birthday Project: Shadow Play

I spent last night pondering how I can use the setup of a lead pan (for those who don't know, the notes are laid out in a circle of fifths) as a compositional starting point. I began by trying to come up with interesting scales by starting on a given pitch and skipping one note in a given direction, then two, three, etc. While I came up with is what is considered to be "standard" 20th century pitch classes (Augment/Diminished chords which can be synthesized into whole tone/octatonic collections) I now at least have a more idiomatic understanding of the pan from a composer's point of view.

Today I did a little research on youtube regarding Kotekan patterns (interlocking rhythmic patterns found in Balinese gamelan music) used in the tradition of Wayang Kulit (Balinese shadow puppet theater). I stumbled upon some cool examples that I will definitely have to play around with.