Tyson-Glomar Response (SP)-P

Glomar Response is the name for the phrase “we can neither confirm nor deny…” and originates from a CIA project in the early 1970s. Although secret at the time, we now understand the ship known as the USNS Hughes Glomar Explorer was not on a mission to harvest manganese nodules from the ocean floor. Rather, its mission was to recover the wreckage of the Soviet submarine K-129 (including code books and a nuclear missile) from the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. When a question is answered with the Glomar Response, it might protect someone’s well-deserved privacy, but it is often used to avoid (or at least postpone) an international incident. It is an honest answer in its own way, but it only muddies the waters. The obfuscation is built in, and that’s the point. “We’re not saying we did it, but if we did do it, we couldn’t talk about it anyway.”

Glomar Response (the percussion quartet, not the answer) has a strong underlying structure, but obfuscation of pulse and timing is built into the piece. Still, the organization behind it will, in the end, help you feel that everything is (almost) just fine. The Glomar Explorer cost $350 million to build in 1972. Performing Glomar Response is considerably cheaper. The percussionists will only need four drums and eight drumsticks. Glomar Response is dedicated to my students at the University of Central Arkansas. It was premiered at the UCA Percussion Festival on April 13, 2024.

– Blake Tyson

• Number of players: 4
• Difficulty: Intermediate
• Instrumentation:
• Player 1: High tom
• Player 2: Medium high tom
• Player 3: Medium low tom
• Player 4: Low tom