If you blow into a trumpet's tube while lowering the piston valves (any combination of the three pistons), you get "the sound of the cold" - a soft, large band of noise slowly phase-modulated (because of the moving pistons), perceived as a continous timbral glissandoing and shifting of formant peaks. That is the theme of these 7 short improvisations (each about 40 seconds) on the cold. The performer's sounds are processed in real time by means of an algorithmically controlled polyphonic granular time-shift, which magnifies the phase-related effects and also results in a prolongation of the performer's nuances in micro-rhythms and other details. A voice announces the beginning of each variation (this is optional, on tape). Each announcement was passed through a filter bank modelling the spectral resonances of each of the 7 combinations of piston valves used in the piece.
Technically speaking, "7 Short Improvisations on the Cold" is an example of interactive performance of algorithmically controlled timbre-composition. More personally, it depicts, though on a fairly abstract level, the absurd in the heart (east) of Europe and elsewhere in this cold world.

Agostino Di Scipio (I), born 1962, is working at the Laboratorio Musica & Sonologia, in L'Aquila, with a focus on new models of sound and music and on composition theory. He is teacher in Electroacoustic Music at the Conservatory of Bari.