Diego Stocco

While I was out for a walk I found a little piece of wood that seemed to have a nice resonance. As I was playing with it, I lifted up some parts that were sticking out, to pluck them.

A couple of days later I attached a microphone to it, I was curious to hear how the sound could be transformed when processed through some pedals. The next day I went out with a small rig I assembled, found a place under some trees and started listening.

I heard a woodpecker tapping, birds of different voices, leaves moved by the wind. I imagined being part of that spontaneous and ever changing composition. I imagined responding to the birds by bowing small accents as if they were bird sounds, tapping the wood to imitate the patterns of the woodpecker, the rustling of leaves and those small sounds that happen randomly when animals move around.

The muted sound of the wind was also flowing naturally into the processing rig, with waves of different intensity. The sound was happening in real-time through the combination of natural elements and elements I played. A naturally sustained feedback was also happening between the microphone and a small speaker in the rig, going up and down based on the distance of the amplified wood and the wind level.

I really enjoyed this experience because I felt part of nature’s sound flow, by focusing on listening and responding to the sound instinctively. No concept of repetition and refinement, not worrying about seeing this as a performance, no concept of complexity or simplicity.