Sarah Belle Reid: Noisy But Playful

Trumpet players use the refined term embouchure to describe how their mouth meets the brass. We regular folk would probably describe its basic sound with the obnoxious term “raspberry.” 

Although she is a classically trained trumpet player with impressive tone, Sarah Belle Reid would likely embrace the later, and then turn it into a compositional inspiration.

Instead of further perfecting her classical ability, she has taken an adventurous journey to play with the sonic extremes she can coax from her instrument. She then takes the data of her motions, and augments her trumpet with the extremes of electronic sound. The result is a magnificent soundscape that constantly surprises and sometimes offends. 

That she is able to take gestures that are musical for the trumpet and apply them to unmusical sounds, then wrestle them into something we can call music again is really the dilemma of any electronic musician. We were really drawn to this achievement, so the Buchla Thunder Overlay seemed like a natural companion for what she does - an interface infused with music-mechanic ideas, but with no musical legacy in its design. It is only concerned with the musical future, a future that Sarah Belle Reid is playfully guiding us to. 

We captured some of this spirit in our short film - we hope you can be inspired by it!