Capture, manipulate, project, preserve: A compositional journey

Much of the text in this article first appeared as an invited keynote presentation given at the From Tape to Typedef; Compositional Methods in Electroacoustic Music symposium held at the University of Sheffield, UK, from 30 January to 2 February 2013 and charts a personal compositional journey from the early 1980s to the present day, referencing compositional methodologies and remarking on what has changed (if anything) over a 30-year career composing with technology on fixed media. The relationship between soundscape composition and acousmatic music is examined with reference to a number of projects and pieces of music including Peel, ABZ/A, Gordon Soundscape, scènes, rendez-vous and the Three Cities Project.