Shadyside Loops was inspired by a morning after a sleepless night, in which I did several walking laps around Shadyside, where I was living at the time. I can’t remember the exact route, but it was something like Walnut to College to Ellsworth to Aiken and back. Before my first lap, I went to the Rite Aid on Walnut and bought this awful protein coffee drink that I thought would make me feel a little bit more human, but it was one of the most foul things I’ve ever consumed.

In any case, I did four or five laps that morning under the dreary overcast sky, and I was so sleep-deprived that I couldn’t really think very clearly. I had a lot to think about, but my thoughts couldn’t go anywhere or complete themselves. During this walk, I heard the first bar of the piece in my head, over and over and over, and that obsessive repetition of both that music and my own actual thoughts is what led to this piece being the most minimalist work I’d composed up to that point.