Metal | String | Electric Air

Metal | String | Electric Air

Duration: 17 min

Instrumentation: Electric Guitar, Tibetan Singing Bowls, Pedal Effects

Technical Specifications: Stereo Audio, 4k Video

Year: 2025

Performer: Andrew Noseworthy

Growing up, my Ouma had a brass bowl that she kept on her mantelpiece. The bowl was etched with intricate designs, and as a child I enjoyed studying it, and particularly tapping it, to hear how long I could make it ring. Today, I have inherited that bowl, and my life-long journey with it, is what inspired this composition.

As an adult, I can now parse what I found interesting about the sound it created. The bowl sings with a rich spectrum of harmonics, yet somehow pure and unified at the same time. A sound that gives you a sense of the resonant acoustic space which you inhabit. A sound that swells suddenly, then trails off towards silence ever so slowly.

For this composition, I wanted to enhance these feelings of resonant space, but wanted to go beyond simply putting a microphone on or near singing bowls. I thought about the concept of sympathetic vibrations, where a passive string or vibratory body responds to external vibrations to which it has a harmonic likeness. The guitar strings would resonate alongside the bowl, further enhancing the spectrum of harmonics. Finally an electric boost provided by the guitar would allow these sometimes inaudible resonances to be maximized and enhanced, further increasing their beauty and complexity.

Filmed at the Tranzac Centre, Toronto, June, 2025.