Works » By Title » P » Percussion of the Air (12:30 / 1987)

“Percussion of the Air” for marimba and tape, extracts nerves and bones from imaginary spirits and opposes ‘image’ with ‘object’. “Through air being collected and compressed, a spirit may assume bodies of various shapes, and by such instrument speak and move with force, defying the precepts of those speculators whose arguments are not confirmed by experience, of sound where there is no movement or percussion of the air...” —Leonardo da Vinci. This piece is dedicated to the spirit of invention and research of Leonardo. All percussions of the air were recorded in travels to and from Banff, Alberta: Amsterdam, Holland and Norwich, England in 1986. The imaginary spirits were collected at the Electronic Music Studio of the University of East Anglia, in Norwich, England. The sounds were compressed at the Electroacoustic Studios of La Muse en circuit, in Paris. The nerves and bones were extracted in January, 1987 in Paris. CS