Peter McIlwain: Percussian Miniature #1

Abstract

This is one miniature from a suite of miniatures for percussion and tape (it would be good to find a new term for this as these pieces are now usually performed using either a CD or digital tape). The works use percussion instruments for the sound source on the tape parts (which were mixed down from four channel to stereo) as well as including live percussion parts. The pieces make only minimal use of signal processing, instead relying on musique concrete editing techniques to present the sounds in a continuous musical texture. In this way the acoustic nature of the sounds is retained, but presented in the kind of texture which would normally be associated with synthetically generated or manipulated sound.