Touching Water

Water doesn’t just flow. It listens. It responds.

Inspired by Disney Research’s Touché, this piece transforms water from a passive element into an active musical instrument. Using an electronic sound generator built from water containers, alongside a piano and a marimba, the composition explores how technology can uncover the hidden voices within the natural world.

In Touching Water, sound behaves like water itself—fluid, unpredictable, constantly shifting. The water-generated sounds ripple, pulse, and resonate, sometimes delicate like the faintest drop, other times deep and resonant, like waves crashing against an unseen shore. The piano anchors the piece with harmonic reflections, while the marimba and piano add rhythmic undercurrents, mimicking the textures of rain, streams, and the heartbeat of flowing rivers.

This isn’t just music about water.
It’s music with water—
as if the liquid itself remembers, resists, and responds.

The piece ebbs and flows, balancing between stillness and chaos, control and spontaneity. Just as water can reflect calmness or unleash storms, the music shifts from serene minimalism to moments of overwhelming density, where sound seems to dissolve into itself.

But beneath the surface, there’s a question:
When we touch water, does it touch us back?