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Distance is a piece of music that speaks closely of my personal perception of human relationships, in specific, the dichotomy of physical distance and psychological distance. We often find ourselves attracted to someone whom we have just met, and over time we are ought to lose interest or the same attraction time as we get closer to them. Sometimes it works the opposite way, you might find someone more and more interesting as you get to know more of them.

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The piece Distance explores such irony and dissonance of human relationships from multiple musical perspectives. The piece is based on what is known as ‘Super Lydian mode’, which renders the idea of distances very well. The model is built on a pattern of whole-whole-whole-half steps. This makes the mode to be the most consonant when the two very ends of the patterns are played together or the very closest two are play together as it follows the pattern of the Circle of 5ths. As they get further away from these consonant points, they get more and more dissonant. The piece also involves a different style of musical language to explore the irony in depth - from imitation of human speech to heavy repetition and progressive variation.