Undertone III by Simon Atkinson

Yesterday I visited the De Montfort University Leicester Gallery to experience Undertone III, a vibrotactile work by Simon Atkinson. The piece comprises a single vibrating floor, roughly 1.2 metres square and made of wood, upon which you are invited to stand, sit, or lie in order to feel the vibrations. There is nothing to hear – this is a piece that is experienced entirely in your body – and yet it is a highly musical work, with discernible melodic and harmonic content. The pitches are not heard conventionally, but their relationships are nevertheless perceptible through changing patterns of vibration. For someone like me with severe hearing loss and other conditions that make listening to conventional music difficult or even impossible, it is one of the finest examples of an accessible musical experience I have encountered.

The piece takes some time to have its effects. The vibrations are not predictable in behaviour and not repetitive in nature. Instead, they roll into perception gradually and unfold in a deliciously evocative manner. Initially, I experienced the vibrations as faintly sinister, but as I settled into the work they gradually became rich, complex and unexpectedly pleasurable. It was quite a wrench to leave it and I intend to go back there and experience it again soon. I think the sinister start is almost inevitable with extremely low frequencies, because of their endless cultural associations with menace in movies. But the piece has a way of gently contradicting received knowledge and quietly asserting its own unique presence.

Back in 2023, I experienced the first Undertone as part of an Aural Diversity workshop at the Attenborough Arts Centre, Leicester. That had a more assertive presence and relied a lot on the power of sustained vibrations. I also visited Feel the Sound at the Barbican in London in 2025, which was a whole exhibition devoted to vibrotactile work. What I found there was that it was too overpowering, especially for an autistic person like myself, and I was unable to visit the entire show. I also attended Tim Baker’s showing of his vibroacoustic research in Derby, which included several works that took different approaches to this kind of composition in a fascinating way. The field is growing rapidly and already encompasses a remarkable diversity of approaches, but I must say that Undertone III was the first time I felt I was experiencing a genuinely new kind of music, rather than just a novel sensation. Works such as Undertone III remind us that accessibility is not simply about making existing musical practices available to more people. They can also reveal entirely new musical possibilities. I recommend it very highly.

Undertone III forms part of an exhibition of work by staff at De Montfort University. The exhibition runs until September at Leicester Gallery, Vijay Patel Building, De Montfort University, Mill Lane, Leicester LE2 7PT.