Precipitation Studies Volume 1: Surfaces
The first in a series of three rainscapes composed by Mark Vernon, broadcast on Resonance 104.4FM, 10th October 2010 for Framework’s 300th edition anniversary show.
Rain has a unique ability to sound out and describe the surfaces in our immediate surroundings, making us newly aware of the timbre, dimensions and other sonic qualities of all things in our vicinity. Rainfall on pots and pans, tubs and tins, car bonnets and cafe tables, park benches and rubbish bins, drainpipes and scaffolding, umbrellas and window panes, conservatories and caravans, pavements and microphones…
“I opened the front door, and rain was falling. I stood for a few minutes. Lost in the beauty of it. Rain has a way of bringing out the contours of everything; it throws a coloured blanket over previously invisible things; instead of an intermittent and thus fragmented world, the steadily falling rain creates continuity of acoustic experience.”
(from: John M. Hull, Touching the Rock. An Experience of Blindness, Arrow books, London, 1991, pp.22-23)