PLUM (1973) Sibilities of the Medium, She Left in 1959 to Set up Her Own Pri- Composers/Performers: Lol Coxhill/Steve Miller Vate Oramics Studio
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Daphne Oram was born in 1925. Following her musical stud- As with its companion pieces, for one and two springs re- ies she worked as a music balancer for BBC radio in London. spectively, this work uses part of an amplified instrument Her unperformed, half-hour-long Still Point (1950), for double called My Spring Collection. The three springs, which are 20, orchestra, prerecorded instrumental sounds and live elec- 25 and 38 cm in length, are amplified by means of four mag- tronic treatments, may well have been the very first composi- netic pickups arranged in a square; two of them are connected tion in any country to incorporate live electronic transforma- to the left channel and two to the right. The springs are tion. In the mid-1950s, having failed to convince anyone at the moved around in different combinations and positions above BBC of the importance of the recently introduced electronic or directly on the pickups and are played by the fingers and a music and musique concrète, she began with Desmond Briscoe variety of small implements. to assemble a temporary tape studio at night after broadcasting Out of more than a dozen significant solo pieces of mine for had finished, producing in this manner, both independently my invented instruments, this is one of only two that have not and in collaboration, background music for several radio and already been issued on a recording or will appear on a CD in TV drama broadcasts. This led in 1958 to the foundation, pri- the course of 2001. marily sponsored by the drama department, of the BBC’s Radiophonic Workshop, of which she was the first director. However, unhappy with the lack of interest in the musical pos- PLUM (1973) sibilities of the medium, she left in 1959 to set up her own pri- Composers/performers: Lol Coxhill/Steve Miller vate Oramics studio. Note by Lol Coxhill, 17 Laney House, Portpool Lane, London, Like Raymond Scott in the same period, Daphne Oram EC1N 7UL, U.K. Steve Miller (deceased). combined her work as a composer with developing a special- ized composition machine; they both financed their studios During the 1970s, continuing into the 1990s, pianist Stephen by concentrating on commercial work, in Oram’s case prima- Miller and I worked together on many occasions, either as a rily for television and documentary films. Her only commer- duo or with the group Delivery, or with other musicians. This cially recorded work is Electronic Sound Patterns (1962), in the track is an excerpt from an improvisation during an early series Listen, Move and Dance. A working version of the 1970s tour of colleges in Britain. Steve plays electric piano, Oramics machine, involving drawn sound techniques, was and I play saxophone with a Watkins Copycat echo unit. completed in the mid-1960s, so it did not feature in the cre- ation of Four Aspects. This machine was overtaken by digital developments in the 1980s, and Oram spent several years PART 3 (1968) working on a computer-based system to replace it. Following Performers: The People Band—Terry Day, Mel Davis, Lyn Dob- two strokes in the mid-1990s, she has sadly been unable to son, Eddie Edem, Tony Edwards, Mick Figgis, Frank Flowers, continue any of her work. Terry Halman, Russ Herncy, George Khan I now manage the archive of Daphne Oram’s papers and Note by Terry Day, The People Band, 80 Bulwer Road, Barnet, tape recordings; my first experience of working in an elec- Herts, EN5 5EY, U.K. tronic music studio was as a guest at her studio in 1962. It is likely that a recording of her electronic compositions will be The People Band was an amalgam of the personnel from five released in the future. to seven regular bands that played at the Starting Gate pub in Wood Green, north London, circa 1965–1970. The original name of the band was the Continuous Music Ensemble, the THE JUDITH POEM (1973) concept of continuous music being a primary tenet of its phi- Composer: Bob Cobbing losophy, which it consistently held and pursued. The notion Performers: abAna—Bob Cobbing (voice), Paul Burwell (per- was that “music is in the air”—all one has to do is plug into it cussion), David Toop (electric guitar) and catch it, for music is continuously there, all around. Note by Bob Cobbing, 89A Petherton Road, London, N5, U.K. At around this time, John Stevens called his various groups the Spontaneous Music Ensemble. The Continuous Music En- This is one of my Girlie Poems done between 1969 and 1977 semble decided to change its name to avoid confusion. From and published by Good Elf in 1982. It is for Judith Walker, and 1965 the Continuous Music Ensemble had been collaborating the poem is made of the letters of the name Judith. It was in- with the People Show (an alliance between music and theater) tended to be somewhat dramatic in form and was one of the on the underground/alternative circuit. This included Middle first poems to be performed by the group abAna (Bob Earth club, Drury Lane Arts Lab and so on. These were the Cobbing, Paul Burwell, David Toop, plus Christopher Small, days when collaborations between the arts became “events” Lynn Conetta and Herman Hauge). It dates from 1971. and “happenings,” involving musicians, painters, poets, actors, dancers, environmentalists, installationists, etc. These were also the days of audience participation. Many USIC FOR HREE PRINGS M T S (1977) were the gigs when audiences would gradually move forward Performer: Hugh Davies during the evening and sit in with the band. The audience had Note by Hugh Davies, 25 Albert Road, London N4 3RR, U.K. little choice. The whole space of an environment became the E-mail: <[email protected]>. stage. Musicians playing non-fixed instruments would wander around the space. At times, only a few would be on stage, only This excerpt consists of the first 5 minutes of a 13-minute stu- to desert it. The sound was dispersed everywhere and every- dio performance. The recording contains only what was heard body had no choice but to be involved in making music of over the loudspeakers (the live sound is almost inaudible), some kind. The band would swap instruments and the audi- and was made directly from mixer to tape recorder without ence could see a leveling effect between musicians that in- use of additional microphones. cluded them also. 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