The sounds of rolling objects bounced around the ceiling of Martha-Ellen Tye Recital Hall on Saturday afternoon — everything from marbles to golf balls.

But there was a catch — Scott Wyatt, guest composer and professor at the University of Illinois, says the effect was made mostly of two-by-four boards, compressed air and a trombone — not by actual rolling objects.

Wyatt performed this piece, “On a Roll,” along with various others during “Electroacoustic Sound!” a concert of contemporary music which was part of the “Lipa Festival of Contemporary Arts.”

The concert featured seven pieces, mostly composed by Wyatt. Five of the pieces were played from a tape.

The sounds were played through the surround sound system of the recital hall.

“Most concert halls don’t have the needed channels for this type of performance,” Wyatt says. “Iowa State is lucky to have a system like this in a small concert hall.”

The crowd that attended the performance, although modest, was highly enthusiastic about the music being performed.

One of the pieces was inspired by e-mails written by Brian Rooney, an American reporter in Iraq, to his family back home. Two of the pieces were accompanied by live performers, a saxophonist and a percussionist.

The pieces were composed mostly of different sounds, ranging from spoken words to car horns, put together specifically for the surround-sound environment.

Each piece was claimed to have different inspiration, but it was difficult to find much of a difference in the actual pieces. Indeed, each piece seemed to be composed of the same elements — random car horns, a few spoken words, an occasional percussion beat, and silence followed by loud noises.

Although the pieces were not the type that one would play in the car, they were interesting and thought provoking to listen to, and an experience that anyone would be able to appreciate. In fact, the pieces fit perfectly with the purpose of the festival, which is to provide a showcase for contemporary music.

The festival was made possible by its director Christopher Hopkins, professor of music.

Hopkins says the surround-sound system in Martha-Ellen Tye Recital Hall was his inspiration to inviting Wyatt to perform at the festival.

“I was on a tour of the facilities and I was brought to [the recital hall],” Hopkins says. “[My guide] played a DVD for me and I was blown away by the sound.”

Hopkins says he knew as a new faculty member he was going to be expected to host the “Lipa Festival of Contemporary Arts,” an annual festival of contemporary music.

He says the first person he thought of to come as a guest lecturer and performer to the festival was Wyatt, as he was a past colleague at the University of Illinois. Hopkins says he had worked with Wyatt on creating Electroacoustic musical pieces.

Electroacoustic music, Hopkins says, is music that takes acoustic sounds that are recorded using a special method and puts them in a surround-sound environment.

“It’s beyond a simple recording because it’s also an acoustic medium,” Hopkins says.