This summer, I spent a lot of time watching and filming insects in my garden. (A short excerpt is below, followed by the full film, ‘Insects’).

The part I enjoyed most was scoring the 15 second sequence of a fly on a flower, playing marimba. First it is approached by another fly (ominous French horns over a pedal bass). It raises its wings defensively (tremolando violins), fends off an attack (timpani roll), wipes its feet (hands?) together gleefully (violin pizzicato), then resumes its marimba playing while also continuing wiping its hands of its attacker.

Perhaps a little too much anthropomorphism?