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FLYING SPARKS AND HEAVY MACHINERY
For string quartet and percussion quartet (2000)
Performed by FLUX STRING QUARTET and TALUJON PERCUSSION QUARTET
Flying Sparks and Heavy Machinery was inspired by machine and factory sounds: the metallic scrapes, squeaks, and bangs; the ambient buzzes and whines; and the imperfect rhythmic repeats of heavy machinery. During a residency sponsored by the Siemens Corporation in Nuremberg, Germany, I conducted six weeks of research into these utilitarian industrial sounds, visiting factories, observing and listening to all types of machinery, and recording sounds on site. I was particularly fascinated by the sense of gradually changing environments that occur in a large factory as the sounds shift from the ambient hum of fluorescent lights, to the grinding harmonics of buzzsaws, to the rhythmic crashes and bangs of huge metal presses. Machine rhythms go in and out of phase, dynamics vary wildly, and in an environment of ever-changing activity and noise, the frequency spectrum fluctuates from sub-audio rumbles to barely audible high-pitched whines. My interpretation of these shifting environments ranges from the literal (rhythmic transcriptions of the recordings that I made on site) to the fanciful (Russian constructivist inspired evocations of industrial activity). Strings focus on microtonal variations of pitch, replacing equal-temperament with the untuned buzzing, humming, and grinding sounds of machines. Percussion instruments are all of indefinite pitch, and imitate the banging, scraping, and hissing cacophony of the factory.

If all pieces are biographical, this is no exception. When I first started work on Flying Sparks and Heavy Machinery, I awoke to a veritable lexicon of machine and work-related sounds: a large crew of jackhammers tearing up my street, men on scaffolds hammering away at the brick facade outside my window, and a symphony of band saws, crowbars, and sledgehammers renovating the apartment upstairs. Trying to work through the constant noise created more moments of desperation than inspiration for me, but the cacophony and hammering always brought me back to the random rhythms and shifting patterns of utilitarian noise.