Study in Steel

Stereo fixed media.

Study in Steel is the opening of a cycle of short works, all exploring the sounds and uses of metal. Bells, clangs and metallic squeaks and resonances are favourite sounds of acousmatic composers: they do one of the things we (well, I) love, which is to yield lots of internal complexity, and with their component pitches refusing to sit on the ‘everyday’ scales that you might play at the piano. This little piece calls up sounds from the catalogue of materials I’ve been recording since the mid-1990s: wire chimes, metallic bowls, an imitation medieval psaltery complete with found (‘wrong’) tuning, algorithmic models. Some of the materials will suggest a connection – an hommage, I hope – to an early work by one of our founding fathers, Pierre Schaeffer, his 1948 Étude aux chemins de fer. If my Study in Steel has a rather open-ended quality, that’s because I think of it as an overture: a declaration of intent, throwing ideas into the air. They will land later!