One of the themes that threads through my work as an artist is the symbology of water in music. Recently this have been focused through work with (mostly) analog electronica, and Sound · Engineering · Water represents an extension of this focus and its associated procedures. This activity is part of a broader investigation exploring a certain kind of textural observation with regard to music and sounds. One recent composition might serve as an illustrative outcome – Melt (2023), for solo Humbox (listen here).
In her seminal book “An Individual Note” (1971), the English electronic music pioneer Daphne Oram (1925 – 2003) laid out a comprehensive aesthetic. Her starting point was the capacitor – the electrical component within a stable circuit that accumulates energy until reaching a point of discharge, when the energy is released. If left undisturbed, a capacitor will cause a regular series of pulses. If connected to a loudspeaker, the result will be a simple pitch oscillation. A capacitor can also be used to store energy, damping unwanted oscillation within the system.
Sound · Engineering · Water responds to the Exeter canal Pound Locks (most likely the earliest example of such engineering in the UK) and the interconnected system of channels and gates which makes up the Exeter canal system. A pound lock is probably the best available physical analogy of a capacitor, as it collects water from above to raise the level in the pound and then discharges the water downstream as it descends to the level below. By comparison, the single lock gate at the entrance to Canal basin at the Quays acts more like a damping mechanism, maintaining a reasonably even water level for the canal and canal basin.
Canal Basin Lock, Exeter Quays The “Library of Synthesisers”
A Brief Catalogue of Works and Projects on Water-related Themes
2021- 2022 · StillTide. Weekly networked online performance with Duncan Chapman, sound artist. Music for a time of lockdown, for modular synthesiser, digital processing and video image. Sample available here
2005 · Water Noise. A scratch rendition of G.F. Handel’s Water Music for local musicians and schoolchildren, with Philip Robinson, as part of Devon Wildlife Trust’s Dart Water Festival. Longmarsh, Totnes
2003 · Waterdrawing. With Jenni Wittman, artist and filmmaker. A collaborative work with performance students from King Edward VI Community College, Totnes, combining sounds, music, performance and digital video images, culminating in three performance events celebrating the life of, and life on, the River Dart. The Ariel Centre, Totnes
1999 · Ocean’s Gift. Programme note for silent performer
1993 · Fall, rain, on this dry earth. Score for four performers with pebbles
A fuller artists’s biography is available here
Some Electronic Water Sound Examples
Watery sounds by analogy – Pitch waves (listen here); Spectral waves (listen here)
Melt (2023) 12:20 – 13:40
Electronic sounds that resemble water sounds – Droplets (listen here); Babbling (listen here)
Melt (2023) 2:20 – 3:30