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Scratch Music- Orchestra (1969)

Introduction

- Orchestra founded by- Parsons, Skempton & Caudew


- Gathered artists eager to engage in experimental performance activities
- Based on the ‘Draft Constitution’
- Scratch music- one of the several categories outlined in the constitution
- Early days
- Half way between composing and improvising- “combined free expression
of 50 players, and as a training ground”
- Didn’t catch on- most players were unsure of their role
- Later
- Triggered by the civic and press response (banned on the grounds of
obesity)
- Saved from liquidation by two communist members
- Investigated the possibility for political music making & study
revolutionary theory
- Conclusion
- Fulfilled a particular need at a particular time
- “but for now...scratch music is dead”
* educational tool

Draft Constitution

- Definition:
- “Large number of ‘enthusiasts’ pooling their resources & assembling for action
(music making, performance & edification [education])”
- Music- doesn’t refer exclusively to sound but can be flexible & depends of
orchestra members
- The Scratch Orchestra
- Performed in the public sphere in the form of ‘concerts’
- In rotation, each member will have the opportunity to design a concert
- Draws on the given categories
- Categories
- Scratch Music
- Performance technique
- Each orchestra member has a notebook (Scratchbook) in which he
notates a number of accompaniments (music that allows a solo)
- Notation through- graphical, vocal, musical, collage, etc...
- The last accompaniment in the list has the status of solo
- NB: difference between solo and accompaniment is the mode
of playing
- Popular Classics
- Define: works that are familiar to several members
- Particles of a selected work are gathered in an Appendix
- E.g. Page of a score/arrangement, record
- Performance technique
- Member plays the given particle- remaining players join in as best
they can (contributing what they can recall or fill in gaps with
improvisation)
- Works programed under their original title
- Improvisation Rites
- Not a musical composition
- Does not attempt to influence the community of feeling
- Free improvisation may be indulged in occasionally
- Compositions
- Appendix 3 will contain a list of compositions performable by the orchestra
- If the composition is acclaimed it may quality for inclusion in ‘Popular
Classics’
- Research Project
- Obligatory activity for all orchestra members- to ensure cultural expansion

Scratch Books

- Definition: Own personal, private document, used for ideas, scratch music & research
- The idea that each person should write a number of pieces equal to the number of
people in the orchestra
- Compose not more then one a day
- Each piece in theory should be performable
- Notation varies
- Each piece should be flexible enough to allow a solo
- When the orchestra is playing, it is up to the judgement of the participants whether
more then one player can be soloing at the same time
- “Scratch Music- its about live and let live, peaceful cohabitation, play, meditation,
relaxation”

Extracts from Draft Constitution

- Ask members to make up songs and melodies (without accompaniment)- then these will
be taught to the whole orchestra, and sung in union
- Scratch Music are vessels that catch ideas that in the normal course of events, would be
thrown away and forgotten
- Scratch music is a method of uniting a group of people
- Anyone can write and play it

Extracts from ‘Compositing for the Scratch’

- A piece of scratch music is a composition, to be played by the composer, alongside


others similarly engaged
- Scratch music can be exchanged
- E.g. A’s piece is given to B to play, while A plays B’s piece
- Encourages comprehensibility (must be able to be understood by someone else)
- Through Scratch music you can gain experience of different ideas interacting with each
other
- Lays the foundation for compositing pieces for several different people
- Regular turnover is essential- a piece should be played soon after they are written, so
that the practical experience feeds back into the composing activity
- Initial fear that everyone would be drowned out unless precautions were taken
- However, in practice scratch music did not make a lot of noise
- Should be performable for indefinite periods of time

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