seismism
Open score for percussion.
Commissioned by TROMP International Percussion Competition 2026.
seismism is a score that translates daily seismic activity into a notated form for solo percussion. Drawing on data from the USGS earthquake database, each day’s seismic events are mapped visually onto a single page. Over time, these daily pages accumulate into a score, a snapshot of global tectonic movement. The score is conceived as open: it does not prescribe fixed rhythms, but rhythmic relationships, no fixed pitches, but relative pitches and textures. It also provides the performer with visual translations of seismic activity. The performer responds sonically through three families of sound, which are encoded in the score:
1. Low membranophones (bass drum, timpani, or low toms), evoking the ground’s resonant, subterranean presence.
2. Small objects played on or around the drum (shaken idiophones, branches, stones, or metals), suggesting friction, scattering, and surface detail.
3. Instruments capable of high sustained tones (bowed metals, ocarinas, whistles, melodicas), producing fragile, unstable sounds that mirror an instability and unpredictability of weather around seismic activity.
The piece is of indeterminate length. The percussionist may choose any number of consecutive pages to perform, shaping a form that can range from brief to extended durations. Initially, Seismisms will exist as a score (in PDF form) of a total of 365 pages, a year’s activity. In its future form, the work will become “mutable": a continuously generating online score where each day’s seismic data is translated into a new page, exported as a PDF.
For its premiere at TROMP, the percussionist will devise an individual setup based on the three recommended sound families. In this first version, no amplification will be used. Later realisations may incorporate amplification and live electronics, amplifying the metaphor of seismic activity as vibration, resonance, and instability.
As well as the score element there is a live generated ‘drone’ based on daily seismic activity which can be used and tuned to fit the percussion set up used. This can be played back with transducers, bluetooth speakers or other devices.
The drone can be accessed here.
The full score will be available around June 2026. Premiere at TROMP, Eindhoven on September 23rd, 2026.
