Distance Music defies conventional descriptions. It’s not just a music event, but an interactive journey, akin to a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG). By meticulously arranging where instruments are placed in a large outdoor space, I create a space-time environment where distant sounds assemble unique rhythms at every location in the concert space, akin to exploring different realms within a virtual world – by walking.

Like all Distance Music compositions, “The Flower of Life” employs a special measurement called a “primary interval” [PI] at its musical root. The radius of each of the seven circles that build a Flower of Life figure of 271 feet requires 236 milliseconds for sound to cross (at a temperature of 85˚F). 236ms is also the duration of an eighth-note in 4/4 meter at a tempo of 127 bpm! Because all six musical instruments were placed a primary interval (or a multiple of) apart, when an audience member stands at a point that also shares the PI, all sounds re-assemble with the same beat as they pass by. 

The intersection points of an  ancient seven-circled geometric pattern celled “The Circle of Life” became the locations of  all of the instrument groups and sound apparatuses. Three pairs of MIDI controlled train horns piggy-backed with a glockenspeil bar, called “Sounders”, were placed equidistantly on the primary circle. The Brass Band of Central Florida was split into three septets and placed on the inner circle at intersection points. Radio telemetry allowed the sounds coming from each point to maintain the same beat. At the center point, the train horns’ sounds arrive an 8th note late and the brass bands a 16th late. By delaying the brass groups an additional 16th note, the music arrived with the original beat, intact, just later in time. As attendees walk from the center in every direction, the instruments to which they neared moved ahead in rhythm and the instruments that became farther away shifted later. When they walked onto points of intersection within the circle of life, then the rhythm subdivisions lined up: at those points the distances to every other geometric point shared simple number relationships, musically perceived as perfect rhythmic subdivisions. Walking outside of these ten geometric points resulted in rhythmic chaos. A sonic playground full of new music!