Works » By Title » L » The Leonids (7:00 / 1979)

“The Leonids” was my first experience with electronic music, and it employs the simplest techniques of musique concrète. The sounds employed were produced by two sources: dried beans rolled around in and poured between two tambours, and violins sound, including tapping on the body of the instrument as well as more conventional pizzicato and bowed sounds. The piece was then constructed by varying speed and temporal direction of sounds, and arranging them by (manual) splicing, looping, and layering. The formal design was abstract and intuitive; the title was added after completing the piece to give it a remote context. RSM