Instructions: Place yourself with a skyscape view of your choice, indoors or outdoors. Adjust your soundscape to your liking: open windows, sit under a tree or near waves; find a reflective surface, etc. Listen as the light begins to change at sunset or sunrise while being still, or while in motion (walk, drive, swim, skate, sail, canoe). Or listen while viewing the aurora. Use good quality loudspeakers, headphones or earbuds.

Music for Incandescent Events mediates our perception of time, memory and place, creating a space for contemplation, for awareness of one’s physical environment, and for exploration of consciousness in the moment.

Each iteration of Incandescent Events combines different improvised short melodies and tones performed on a slightly de-tuned shō (Japanese mouth-organ), re-recorded several octaves lower than original pitch. I recorded these melodies at very close range while sitting near a reflective wall, catching rich beat patterns and sum/difference tones. These and additional frequencies beyond the range of human hearing transform into unexpected, complex audio events at slower play-back speeds, several octaves down.

No. 1&3 appeared as “Skyview, Here (version 4) “: livestream and downloadable personal, portable audio “installations” for dawn and dusk sky-viewing via the Canadian Music Centre Ontario Region and Winnepeg’s Send + Receive festival / 101.5 UMFM (CJUM), October 2020.

Composition and shō samples performed by Sarah Peebles. © 2002 Sarah Peebles ASCAP for the World except Canada / SOCAN for Canada. No. 1 is published on bandcamp & Somethings #1 (2007, Last Visible Dog).