This article reflects upon the nature of ornamentation and how it applies within my recent works, Passacaglia (2021), Tor (2022), Fourteen transcriptions from across the plane (plain) (2023), and Through Gates Unseen (2023). I express ornamentation as a multifaceted set of activities which include the figurative, behavioural, layered and architectural. These components broadly move from the smallest sound unit to that of macro-level concerns. I argue that this behavioural aspect of ornamentation is exemplified by states of transition, density, kinetic energy, articulation and the organic. Here, ornamentation is used to distort and destabilise, as a vehicle for modulation, and as a framework for exploratory play between global and local-level details.
