Uploaded April 2016 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
Onoma refers to onomatopoeia, in other words the possibility of creating words which imitate sounds. This piece is the most figurative and imagery-filled of the cycle. It uses short recognizable sounds, notably the voices of children. Its five lively “post cards”, are falsely naive, untitled but named in programme notes – moonlight, tango, hustle-bustle, swing, bouncing. (Bayle, Booklet from the Compact Disc 50 ans d'acousmatique, ina Editions by GRM, 2012, S. 145.)
video created with Audacity, Sonic Visualizer, vokoscreen and OpenShot on an openSUSE 13.2 Linux System.
Onoma refers to onomatopoeia, in other words the possibility of creating words which imitate sounds. This piece is the most figurative and imagery-filled of the cycle. It uses short recognizable sounds, notably the voices of children. Its five lively “post cards”, are falsely naive, untitled but named in programme notes – moonlight, tango, hustle-bustle, swing, bouncing. (Bayle, Booklet from the Compact Disc 50 ans d'acousmatique, ina Editions by GRM, 2012, S. 145.)
video created with Audacity, Sonic Visualizer, vokoscreen and OpenShot on an openSUSE 13.2 Linux System.
![Denis Smalley - Valley Flow [1992]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/9MLMxXPQ-C4/mqdefault.jpg "Denis Smalley - Valley Flow [1992]
The formal shaping and sounding content of Valley Flow were influenced by the dramatic vistas of the Bow Valley in the Canadian Rockies. The work is founded on a basic flowing gesture. This motion is stretched to create airy, floating and flying contours or broad panoramic sweeps, and contracted to create stronger physical motions, for example the flinging out of textural materials. Spatial perspectives are important in an environmentally inspired work. The listener, gazing through the stereo window, can adopt changing vantage points; at one moment looking out to the distant horizon, at another looking down from a height, at another dwarfed by the bulk of land masses, and at yet another swamped by the magnified details of organic activity. Landscape qualities are pervasive: water, fire and wood; the gritty, granular fracturing of stoney noise-textures; and the wintery, glacial thinness of sustained lines. The force and volatility of nature are reflected in abrupt changes and turbulent textures.
Valley Flow was composed at The Banff Centre for the Arts (Canada) in 1991 and was completed in the composer’s studio in Norwich (UK) in 1992. It incorporates sounds created at IRCAM in Paris (France) during a previous research period (1989) and further materials subsequently developed at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver (Canada) in 1991. Valley Flow was premiered on February 27th, 1992 in a concert broadcast live from BBC Pebble Mill Studios. This piece was commissioned by the Birmingham Electroacoustic Sound Theatre (BEAST) with funds provided by West Midlands Arts.")
