Stalagmite Groove
The instructions for this week's Disquiet Junto prompt were simple: "Make music with nothing but rocks." Challenge accepted!
My partner donated some of the special rocks they've collected on their travels to the cause. (Represented were stones from the shores of Iceland, the English countryside, and the mountains of Pennsylvania, among others.) I used a variety of contact mics to capture the sound of these rocks clicking, banging, dropping, and grinding (even submerged in water). I loaded the recordings into a couple of sampler instruments in Logic and programmed grid patterns to trigger the rock sounds like pieces of a drum kit.
I wanted something melodic to go with it, but how to make rocks melodic? I took inspiration from a childhood wonder, the "Stalacpipe Organ" I remember from a trip I took as a little kid to Luray Caverns in Virginia. The memory of the organ in the cave inspired me to hook up the Korg phase8 acoustic synthesizer. The phase8 makes sound using electromagnetic hammers striking thin metal tines, all of which are exposed and invite physical preparation and manipulation. A scattering of polished stones on the tines made a nice reference to the Luray Caverns organ and sounds interesting too.
This is an example of what I call a "situated piece," designed to create the illusion that the listener is in a shared space with the performers—in this case, a quartet playing a minimalist percussive composition live in a cave.
Listen to "Stalagmite Groove" by Coraline Ada Ehmke on Soundcloud.