Uploaded September 2016 | Updated September 2026, 1 day ago
Strictly speaking, surface tension is the phenomenon exhibited by liquids which permits heavy objects to float and enables some insects to ‘walk on water.’ My Surface Tension, however, is based not on water sounds but on dry, brittle sound material derived, quite literally, from rubbish. This paradox is only one of several through and around which this piece weaves a meandering path: it utilizes sounds from packing materials (rather than from what is packaged) — styrofoam, polyethylene sheets and bubble-wrap — ironically, and most significantly, the packaging from a supposedly environmentally-friendly refrigerator; it attempts to reveal ‘beauty’ in what is normally thrown away without a second thought; it tries to find an organic sonic logic from predominantly inorganic material sources; it assembles these according to their ‘sonic surface’ (the particular features of the individual sound objects), yet by doing so creates a musical flow which requires one to listen ‘inside’ the sound, just ‘below’ the surface, getting ‘under the skin’ of the sources’ generally similar natures.
Video created with Sonic Visualizer, vokoscreen and OpenShot on an openSUSE 13.2 Linux System.
Strictly speaking, surface tension is the phenomenon exhibited by liquids which permits heavy objects to float and enables some insects to ‘walk on water.’ My Surface Tension, however, is based not on water sounds but on dry, brittle sound material derived, quite literally, from rubbish. This paradox is only one of several through and around which this piece weaves a meandering path: it utilizes sounds from packing materials (rather than from what is packaged) — styrofoam, polyethylene sheets and bubble-wrap — ironically, and most significantly, the packaging from a supposedly environmentally-friendly refrigerator; it attempts to reveal ‘beauty’ in what is normally thrown away without a second thought; it tries to find an organic sonic logic from predominantly inorganic material sources; it assembles these according to their ‘sonic surface’ (the particular features of the individual sound objects), yet by doing so creates a musical flow which requires one to listen ‘inside’ the sound, just ‘below’ the surface, getting ‘under the skin’ of the sources’ generally similar natures.
Video created with 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.")
