The music contained in these Studies in Movement favours lightness, speed and agility, and that dance-like fleet-of-footness found in the best Baroque performance practice, and notably in the dance movements of the six Cello Suites of J.S.Bach.

All nine studies are based on a sequence of nine consecutive patterns (S85-93) taken from Nicholas Slonimsky's celebrated Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns. The music was written in collaboration with Symbolic Composer, a computer environment for music composition.

The Studies presented here are a preface to the composition Ideograms in the composer's series Facts of Life. They were inspired by the remarkable cellist Peter Gregson, a musician who is able to bring a unique experience of Baroque techniques together with a fascination for the latest technological innovations such as live webcasting and the use of a MIDI cello.