Alan Lamb

Born in 1944 in Edinburgh, Scotland, Alan Lamb had little early formal musical education other than joining a secondary school choir and learning the piano privately from age 8 to 17. He spent his childhood in the countryside near the village of Dunning in Perthshire, under the care of a nanny he called 'My' and to whom he owes his first awareness of 'wire music'. Now a Perth-based composer and biomedical research scientist, Lamb has originated a body of innovative composition based on the resonance of 'singing wires'. One of Lamb's favorite devices is to make gongs and flutes from short pieces of wire and from wooden and metal rods and tubes, and hang them by strings from the wires. When activated by the wind, many different kinds of sounds and rhythms are transmitted into the wires. The strings themselves also create a distinctive sound. When the wind makes them sing in a pitch which resonates with one of the wire frequencies, a sound like Pan's pipes is heard.