Em × Bronze Ensemble

Em × Bronze Ensemble is a project for one to many simultaneously playing electromagnetically prepared cymbals and gongs. Cymbals and gongs are excited at their resonant frequencies using non-contact electromagnetic actuators. Em x Bronze is written and composed in SuperCollider code.

Em × Bronze Ensemble operates in the realm before and up to the familiar splash that results from either striking the instrument with a stick or crashing them together. Metal percussion instruments exhibit very rich dynamics that can't be explored using conventional playing techniques. A cymbal or gong has on the order of a hundred resonant modes that are not harmonically related as they are in a stringed instrument or a column of air in a wind instrument.