This article discusses the way textile metaphors can act as catalysts for reflection in my practice as a trumpet performer and composer. Metaphors such as ‘fibre’, ‘spin’, ‘yarn’, ‘ply’, ‘weave’, ‘loom’, ‘drape’ and ‘felt’ are engaged as lenses through which the dynamic, contingent and tailorable interactions are made between sonic and extra-sonic elements in my expanded practice. The metaphors are engaged to shape instrumental techniques, improvisation, form, audiovisual media, physicality and spatial design. In this article, I describe how I developed my own expanded sonic practice by using Tim Ingold's concept of ‘textility’, expressed as a Textile Sonic Method (TSM). I demonstrate the application of this method using a subset of textile metaphors as the basis for the development of new double-bell trumpet techniques and applications in a range of compositions: Gradient (2020–23), for double-bell trumpet, live video and sound processing, co-composed with Olivia Davies and Nick Roux; Untitled (2021), for double-bell trumpet, portative organ and electronics, co-composed with James Rushford; and my own work Charcoal VI (2017), for spatialised, amplified double-bell trumpet. This article outlines the potential for the application of metaphor as a creative catalyst in an expanded sonic practice.

This article investigates intervallic measurement and the tacit limitations engendered by a prevalent symmetrical perspective of measuring intervals. Various numerical and instrumental limitations and further detail of harmonic and melodic structures, such as Farey sequences, are illustrated. This approach distinguishes itself from a perspective of prime limits, explored by Harry Partch and others. A standardisation of ‘microtonal’ notation is not suggested; rather, the restrictions provided by any such standardisation are re-examined through an objective lens of ratios, to harness the generative potential of numbers. An orchestration-led approach to composition is described, where the tuning limitations of instruments are utilised for idiomatic composition. Tuning practices that ‘evade’ the octave are also discussed, including gamelan, mbira and three scales found by Wendy Carlos. The article concludes with a section on the construction of harmonic systems in the absence of instrumental influences.

This paper proposes an approach to the representation of mental musical space, understood here as a mental ‘hologram’ of a musical structure created while composing or listening to a piece of music. Composers claim to ‘hear’ music in their mind and ‘see’ it in their spatial imagination; normally we see music graphically represented on two-dimensional staves, but we could mentally decode it in a three- or multi-dimensional space, and I argue that Violeta Dinescu's musical vision occupies a non-Euclidean imaginary musical space rather than the Western classical-music template. Dinescu's graphical design suggests a hyperbolic space, distorting the musical parameters accordingly. Two of her works are discussed: Gehen wir zu Grúschenka, for cello with voice ad libitum, and Herzriss – Aus deinem Herzen kannst du die Liebe nicht ausreißen, an opera for solo voice(s), percussion and cello. The first views the behaviour of musical parameters as if in an imaginary hyperbolic space; the latter exemplifies intertextuality in a cultural hyperbolic space. Both are metaphors of the woman's soul.

This article describes a design process for a composition system based upon the quarter-tone scale. As the semitone and quarter-tone scales share the same properties, a musical grammar based upon the former is used as a model to construct an analogous musical grammar based upon the latter. Within the scope of diatonic modal music, the organisation of pitches and durations is analysed from a scientific perspective. Several parameters are taken into consideration: scale, mode, chord, cadence, metre and rhythm. The one-to-one mapping of each facet of diatonic modality onto quarter-tonality results in diahemitonic modality.

The world of opera is well known as a professional community in which egos often clash, yet the complexity of the operatic artwork is often heavily dependent on collaborative practice. This article discusses the co-creative dynamics that gave rise to the premiere production of the comic opera Je suis narcissiste, by composer Raquel García-Tomás, librettist Helena Tornero and stage director Marta Pazos. Through a series of interviews with this artistic team, and a scrutiny of the libretto, score and documentary video recording of its premiere, three significant features of this collaboration are flagged, particularly in Act VIII. These are: a quest for balance in the convergence of the disciplines involved; a mitigation of undesired redundancies in the representation of some elements in the action of the opera; a consideration of the capacity of the human and material resources available for the premiere. The article will also discuss how these anticipatory strategies helped to optimise time during rehearsals.

This article does not attempt to paint a complete picture of Michael Wolters (b.1971) as composer, teacher or researcher. Rather, it is a collection of comments and reflections drawn from a number of recent conversations with him. In these conversations we considered the work he has produced across his career, with a particular focus on his ideas about conceptual working, his outsider position and the essential part that accessibility plays in his creative decision-making.