Building on the knowledge from my Creative Research on Deep Listening, I designed and built five instruments from my imagination, that have the goal of allowing for inner listening: Piedone, Grande Rotondo, Narici, La Nocca, La Pancia. The instruments are inspired by techniques to anchor oneself for presence: finding gravity, the centreline, breathing, touch points, the belly area.

I aimed to create objects with visual insterest that are engaging to interact with and make interesting sounds. I set out to create instruments that exist outside of traditional categories of Western music in terms of shapes, scales and classification, in an attempt to make space for unrestricted play: I hope for this state of freedom to allow the musician’s attention to naturally fall to the present moment, for the sound making to awaken curiosity and for the shapes and sounds of the instruments to inspire connection to the body.

Whilst each instrument has its own quality, their shapes and sounds were conceived in a group of five. With this project it was my aim to build a collaborative, collective space, where sound making together creates a chance to listen. With these ideas in mind, I set up the first improvised performance with the five instruments, which were played by members of a community group I am a part of that discusses and practices mindfulness. We spent an hour together beforehand doing a workshop with group meditations and exercises to get familiar with the instruments. The performance and workshop were recorded and a short video encapsulates the event. ‘Quintetto’ is also the title of a publication that retells the project, the ideas behind it and its stages in printed form.