Music for Climbing Equipment

performed by Aidan Gold, Colin Moen, Stephanie Lee, William Mapp, and Huck Hodge

Music for Climbing Equipment is an experimental piece entirely for different pieces of climbing equipment (and a piano, that is only used at the end for rolling on the strings inside). It uses many different techniques, including a piton as a “water gong” by dipping it into a bucket of water to change the pitch. The piton and the ice axes, struck with soft mallets, provide a mysterious background from which melodic fragments emerge in the chocks and tuned pickets, and eventually coalesce into driving rhythmic patterns.

Specific instrumentation details are on the second page of the score.