The and Visual Arts

Michael Parsons

Leonardo Music Journal, Vol. 11, Not Necessarily "English Music": Britain's Second Golden Age. (2001), pp. 5-11.

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http://www.jstor.org Sat Sep 29 14:25:36 2007 The Scratch Orchestra and Visual Arts ' The Scratch Orchestra, formed In London in 1969 by , Michael Parsons and , included VI- sual and performance artists as Michael Parsons well as musicians and other partici- pants from diverse backgrounds, many of them without formal train- ing. This article deals primarily with the earller phase of the orchestra's activity, between 1969 and 1971. It describes the influ- ence of the work of and Fluxus artists, involving the dissolu- In his essay "Towards an Ethic of Improvisation," David Bedford and other musi- tion of boundaries between sonic written shortly before the formation of the scratch Orchestra, cians were regular visitors at art and vlsual elements in perfor- Cornelius Cardew said of performances of his graphic score colleges in and around London, mance and the use of everyday Treatise (1963-1966): "Ideally such music should be played by in , Liverpool, Maidstone, materials and activities as artistic resources. It assesses the conflict- a collection of musical innocents [people who had no formal Falmouth, Portsmouth and else- ing lmpulses of dlsclpline and musical training] ";he continued, "My most rewarding expe- where. They not only performed spontaneity in the work of the riences with Treatise have come through people who by some and discussed the new music but Scratch Orchestra and in the paral- fluke have (a) acquired a visual education, (b) escaped a mu- also involved students as active lel activity of the Portsmouth sical education and (c) have nevertheless become musicians, participants in works by John Sinfonia and other related groups. The emergence in the early 1970s i.e. play music to the full capacity of their beings" [I]. Cage, Christian Wolff, Morton of more controlled forms of com- The formation of the Scratch Orchestra in 1969 may be Feldman, Cardew, George positional activity, in reactlon seen as the culmination of Cardew's search for new types of Brecht, LaMonte Young, Toshi against anarchic and libertarian as- performer, from backgrounds other than that of a classical Ichiyanagi, Takehisa Kosugi and pects of the Scratch Orchestra's ethos, 1s also discussed. training. Performances of Treatise had taken place in art col- other Fluxus-related comDosers. leges &ring the 1960s, and more recent works such as his As a result there soon ar'ose an '- Schooltime Compositio7ts (1967) also offered opportunities- - for extended network of visually visual as well as musical interpretation. Cardew's own involve- aware performers, for whom the lack of conventional musical ment with the visual arts was close: during the 1960s he training was no obstacle to participation in experimental worked as a graphic designer, his wife Stella was a painter, and music; many of these were among the original members of his circle of friends and colleagues included conceptual and the Scratch Orchestra [3]. performance artists such as and Robin Page Cardew's particular achievement at this time was to bring (both teaching at Leeds College of Art in the late 1960s), together visual artists and musicians froin diverse back- Mark Boyle, who was working with light projections, the grounds in situations to which all could contribute equally, painters Tom Phillips and Noel Forster and many others. regardless of skill or experience, with aural and visual aspects This was a period of far-reaching change and innovation in of performance coexisting in heterogeneous juxtaposition British art schools. The academic disciplines of life-drawing, and interaction with each other. This diversity is reflected in figurative- composition and illustration and the traditional the Draft Constitution. where Cardew notes: "The word mu- craft-based skills, which had been central to art education sic and its derivatives are here not understood to refer exclu- since the mid-nineteenth century, were being challenged by sively to sound and related phenomena (hearing, etc). What new attitudes and policies that reflected some of the more they do refer to is flexible and depends entirely on the mem- radical tendencies in twentieth-century art. Leading artist- bers of the Scratch Orchestra" [4j. educators such as and intro- duced enquiry into fundamental aspects of perception and expression, structure and method, and students were encour- JOHN CAGE AND FLUXUS aged to experiment freely with materials of all kinds. Bound- The immediate precedent for such an open-ended definition aries between disciplines were questioned and redefined, and of music can of course be found in Cage's work of the 1950s there was a shift from the object-based practices of painting and 1960s, in his collaborations with Merce Cunningham, and sculpture to an emphasis on process and context, envi- Robert Rauschenberg and other artists, and in his idea of in- ronmental activity and time-based work in film, sound and determinacy. His "silent" piece 4"33"(1952) had demon- performance. These changes began to take effect in the early strated that silence was not merely the absence of intentional 1960s following- recommendations for the liberalization of art sounds: it created a framework and focus of attention in education included in the Coldstream Report [2]; a genera- which the listener is invited to redefine the significance of kt- tion of artists emerged whose work extended into new mate- sual as well as aural aspects of musical performance. It thus rial and conceptual areas. opened the way to an area of intermediate activity through which there is no clear separation between seeing and hear- ing: both are essential aspects of any live performance situa- VISUAL INFLUENCES The breaking down barriers between different Michael Parsons (composer, performer), 148 Fellows Road, Lolldon N11'3 3JH, U.K. and the growth of interest artists in sound and A slightlv different \ersion of this article dppeared under the title "44 Lacher und ~erforinancecreated a favorable climate for the develo~ment komlsches Gehen: Das Scratch Orcheqtl-a. Fluxus und die xisuellen Kiinste" in Poritiorturi of experimental muslc. Cornelius Cardew, John Tf'lbury, 45 dll"U'Jo"mber 2000 [pp 94381 and Februal, 2001 [~p40-431)

O M~chaelParsons LEONARD0 MLTSICJOLTRNAL,Xrol. 11,pp. 5-11, 2001 5 tion. Cage's work of the 1950s and 1960s paradoxical title and its ambiguous sta- sic). Brecht's pieces operate in an inter- developed from the idea that different tus as either object or process (Ray ex- mediate zone between object and event. kinds of activity could coexist and inter- plained that it was the idea that was inde- Seeing and hearing are equally relevant penetrate without interference. A key structible, not the object itself, which to their interpretation: they may be real- occasion was that of the "untitled event" could be remade any number of times). ized as performances in any medium or that Cage organized in 1952 at Black Another relevant work by Man Ray is his they may be treated purely as obsei-va- Mountain College in North Carolina, Cadeau (1921), a flatiron with a row of tions or mental images. In the 1960s which included live and recorded music, tin tacks glued to its surface, perhaps in- Cardew and Tilbury often included in dance, poetry, painting, film and slide spired by . Just as the use of ev- recitals Brecht's Incidental Music (1961), projections and a lecture by Cage him- eryday objects and materials in the work a work that deals with the piano as a self. Each of these independent ele- of visual artists created shifts and - physical object rather than as a sound ments was assigned its own time-bracket formations of meaning, so in the activi- source. Various activities are specified, to within the total duration: Cage provided ties of Cage and Fluxus participants, tra- be performed in and around the piano; a rhythmic structure to indicate when ditional categories of music, sound and any sound that may arise from this activ- and for how long each element was to performance were subjected to radical ity is literally "incidental" [5]. take place, so that periods of activity and disruption and redefinition. In many respects, the all-inclusive inactivity combined and overlapped in The Japanese composers Kosugi and spirit of Fluxus can be seen to anticipate various ways. This event was followed by Ichiyanagi brought a subtle and elusive that of the Scratch Orchestra: "Artists, further works in which Cage reached far quality to their pieces through the dis- anti-artists, non-artists, anartists, the po- beyond conventional definitions of mu- placement of familiar activities. Kosugi's litically committed and the apolitical, sic to include disparate elements of all '4nima 7 (1964) states that a chosen ac- poets of non-poetry, non-dancers danc- kinds: in his Theatre Piece (1960), for ex- tion is to be performed "as slowly as pos- ing, doers, undoers, non-doers: Fluxus ample, performers are asked to select sible," and his Theatre Music (1964) in- encompasses opposites" [6]. their own repertories of materials and structs the performer to "keep walking In a series of concerts organized by activities, which are individually pro- intently." Ichiyanagi's Distance (1962) Cardew at the Commonwealth Institute grammed (in accordance with the direc- specifies that instruments are to be (London) in April 1967, simultaneous tions of the numerical score) and pre- placed at least 3 meters away from the performances were given of pieces by sented simultaneously to create performers, who are required to play Cage, Brecht and Young: while Cage's maximum visual and aural diversity. them from positions high up in the space: Variations Iwas in progress, Robin Page Cage's course at the effect is to inhibit the players' control interpreted Brecht's Two Durations the New School for Social Research in over their instruments and to emphasize (1960-1961) ("red, green"), swinging New York in 1958 attracted visual and the disjunction between visual aspects of colored lightbulbs on long flexes across performance artists and writers such as their actions and the fragmented sounds the front of the stage, and George Brecht, Allan Kaprow, Al that result from this oblique approach to performed Young's Piano Piece for David Hansen, Dick Higgins and Jackson playing technique. The Scratch Orches- Tudor No. 1 (1960) ("Bring a bale of hay MacLow, many of whoni becanie closely tra performed this work at the Interna- and a bucket of water onto the stage for associated with Fluxus in the 1960s. tional Students House in London on 9 the piano to eat and drink), cooking a Fluxus was an international movement, April 1970, playing instruments by re- meal for himself while waiting for the with interconnected groups of partici- mote control from high platforms with piano's response (". . . the piece is over pants in the U.S.A., Germany, France, Ja- ropes, rods, tubes, missiles and other spe- . . . after the piano eats or decides not pan and elsewhere, involving artists, writ- cially devised equipment. to"). Young's Poem for tables, chairs, ers, performers, musicians and others benches, etc., or other sound sources (1960) whose work could not easily be catego- featured prominently among the works rized within conventional boundaries. It BRECHT AND YOUNG performed by the Scratch Orchestra in was concerned with (among other The work of George Brecht and 1969 and 1970. In its original form, fric- things) a kind of art that would merge LaMonte Young, both closely associated tion sounds were to be produced by pull- almost imperceptibly with everyday life: with New York Fluxus in the early 1960s, ing, pushing or dragging articles of furni- redefining perception of ordinary ob- was particularly influential in the devel- ture across the floor surface, according jects and events, reassessing the value of opment of the Scratch Orchestra. to a strictly programmed time-scheme common materials, activities and situa- Brecht's Water Yam (1960-1963) is a determined by a selection of random tions. There was a prevailing interest in large collection of pieces published in numbers. In later versions, as described the use of chance, in games, puzzles and New York by in the by Cardew, it developed into "a kind of paradoxes, in inversions of conventional form of a box containing white cards, chamber opera, in which any activity, not use and value that owed something to each of which carries a visual image or a necessarily even of a sounding variety, Dada and Surrealism, in particular to the few words that minimally specify or sug- could constitute one strand in the com- work of Kurt Schwitters, Man Ray and gest an object, activity or event of some plex weave of the composition. . . ." [7] Marcel Duchamp. A work of Ray's, Object kind. Some of them refer to musical in- Another piece of Young's, open equally for Destruction (1932)-also known as In- struments-Flute : "disassembling/as- to visual or musical interpretation, was destructibk Ob~ect-consists of the image sembling"; Solofor Violin (or other string his Composition 1960 No. 10 ("Draw a of an eye, cut out from a photograph instrument): "polishing"; String Quartet: straight line and follow it"), which could and attached with a paper clip to the "shaking hands." Others are concerned be performed as a single long-sustained arm of a metronome: this seems to pre- with the timing of chance occurrences tone or as any single-minded, undeviat- figure Fluxus with its play of meaning on (Three Telephone Events) or with non-musi- ing linear activity. These and other references to seeing and hearing, its cal sound sources (D,p Event, Comb Mu- Fluxus-related works were accessible to

6 Parsons, The Scratch Orchestra and Visual Arts musically untrained performers, offering nox at the moment of sunrise (N.Z.)/ "ANY ACTIVITY a different kind of challenge; they called sunset (U.K.) [8]. This interest in spa- WHATSOEVER" for alternative skills of inventiveness, in- tial and environmental context and in genuity, practicality and self-discipline, the characteristics of different locations Painting as performance had its place as and total commitment to the task at reveals an affinity with the work of art- one activity among others, but it enjoyed hand in the face of any eventuality (in- ists such as MTalter de Maria, Robert no privileged status; interaction between cluding adverse audience reaction, inter- Smithson and Lawrence MTeinerin the sound and visual media took many differ- ruption and even interference). U.S.A. and Richard Long, Hamish ent forms. In a performance of Treatiseat Fulton, Andy Goldsworthy in Britain, in 1969, Tim Mitchell made a three-dimensional realization of MULTIPLICITY- whose activities extended far beyond the confines of the gallery or museum. one page of the score in the form of a MATERJALITY The speculative nature of the Research wooden relief structure: the sounds of The coexistence of diverse strands of au- Project [9] (as described in the Draft nailing, sawing and drilling were his con- ral and visual activity was characteristic Constitution) and the idea of perfor- tribution to the music. A Fluxus-like in- of many of the earlier concerts given by mances based on journeys (real or terest in everyday activities, redefined the Scratch Orchestra. The resulting imaginary) also owe something to the and transposed into the context of per- multiplicity often has more in common conceptual art of the 1960s. formance, was much in evidence. A with principles associated with visual The first Scratch performance to be glance through Scratch Music and Nature arts, such as collage and assemblage, based on the Research Project, Journ~yof Studj ,Votes [lo] reveals many examples of than with traditional musical methods; the Isle of Wight Westwards by Iceberg to Tokyo such activities: standing, sitting, walking, the complex intermixture of Scratch Bay, was given at Chelsea Town Hall on running, jumping, smoking, washing, music, improvisation rites, compositions 15 November 1969. Brecht was living in shaving, haircutting, eating, drinking, and fragments of popular classics em- London at this time and he participated sweeping, ball-bouncing, stone-throwing, phasized the mater~alityof sound itself in several Scratch Orchestra events dur- measuring, counting, inventing and play- rather than the intentions of any single ing 1969 and 1970. On this occasion the ing games of various kinds-the list individual or group within the orches- performance was inspired by a proposal could be extended ad infinitum. All tra. b%ereas Cage, even in his most radi- from "Brecht & MacDiarmid Research these and more were liable to occur in cal works of the 1950s and 1960s, still re- Associates" for the translocation of land performance. Michael Chant's Pastoral tained the role of composer in masses by harnessing them to icebergs, Symphony, an abstruse verbal score writ- controlling the formal outlines (if not the latest in an increasingly ambitious ten in 1969 shortly before the formation the content) of simultaneous layers, the series of "translocation and delivery" of the orchestra, generalized this ten- Scratch Orchestra's more collective ap- projects on which Brecht was working dency to the extent of specifying as its proach to performance reflected its during the 1960s. It represents another material "any activity whatsoever involv- loose and informal sociability, which was aspect of his conceptual imagination, ing two or more persons. . . ." [ll] based on mutual respect and tolerance this time on a grand scale, in an area in- The 1001 Actizlities of the Slippery rather than on adherence to any pre- termediate between practical engineer- Merchants, a picaresque sub-group conceived structure or set of rules. ing and pure speculation. within the orchestra dedicated to evad- The orchestra took part in a range of The feasibility of transporting icebergs ing or subverting all remaining vestiges environmental events in London be- from the polar regions to supply fresh of musical authority, coilsisted of a bi- tween 1969 and 1972, in streets, play- water to desert areas of the world had zarre list of puns, parodies and gags, a grounds, derelict sites and shopping apparently been discussed in scientific comprehensive (and sometimes incom- centers, at Euston Station, on the un- journals, and Brecht's proposal simply prehensible) reductio ad absurdum of per- derground, on Hampstead Heath, took the idea a stage further. In the year formance instructions, e.g. "41 Travel a Primrose Hill and the Regent's Park of the first American moon landing it short distance on knees . . . 44 Funny boating lake, and in Cornwall, North may not have seemed particularly far- laugh plus silly walk . . . 71 Throw many Wales, Northumbria and in isolated fetched, perhaps suggesting an ironic things far and wide . . . 79 Insult some- coastal areas and parts of the country- comment on the lavish expenditure of one . . . 206 Stamp foot. . . 585 Sing side. In August 1970 a simultaneous ex- resources for purely spectacular or sym- Balls to the Baker, arse against the wall" change took place with the New bolic effect. The Scratch Orchestra re- [12]. Some of these erupted during the Zealand branch of the Scratch Orches- sponded with a mixed-media extrava- Journey performance at the Queen tra, founded by Philip Dadson, who had ganza of typically divergent aural and Elizabeth Hall, London, on 23 Novem- been a participant in Cardew's experi- visual activities, derived in various ob- ber 1970 (Pilgrimage from Scattered Polnts mental music class at Morley College scure ways from the research of indi- on the Surface of the Body to the Brazn, the (1968-1969). The New Zealand group, vidual participants. A collective "splash Inner Ear, the Heart and the Stomach), in based in the fine arts department at the and drip" painting on a long paper scroll defiance of more or less conventionally University of Auckland, performed an evolved spontaneously in response to the disciplined forms of presentation. annual open-air drumming event dur- instrumental sounds, in reversal of the T.'isual activities and games of various ing the early 1970s in the volcanic cra- usual relationship between music and vi- kinds were included by Cardew in the ter of Mount Eden to mark the summer sual stimulus of a graphic score such as Action Score of paragraph 5 of The Great solstice, and in 1971 Dadson co-coordi- Treatise. Brecht himself delivered a lec- Learning (1969-1970) [13] in an at- nated a global event, Earthworks, with ture on his investigations into certain rel- tempt to incorporate and restrain some groups around the world simulta- evant geographical, oceanographical, so- of the more anarchic tendencies: he de- neously observing and recording local ciological, economic and political scribed paragraph 5 as representing his conditions to mark the September equi- questions raised by the enterprise. own view of the diversity of the orchestra

Pnrsons, The Scratch Orchestra and Visual Arts 7 with its "high level of differentiation of to suggest different meanings and asso- Other pieces by Bright were also un- actions and functions." There is much ciations, providing a fragmentary li- usual for their overtly theatrical charac- material of primarily visual interest in bretto with clues for musical and dra- ter, often requiring formal staging [17]. paragraph 5, including the Dumb Show, matic realization. The discovery of Another quasi-theatrical venture was a with its repertory of gestures adapted potentially "operatic" situations in this series of School Raids (1971), which in- from American Indian sign language, verbal and graphic material shows some volved performers in colorful "wig-out" and Silent Music (one of seven verbal affinity with Brecht's ideas, and al- (clown-like) costume making sudden compositions included in The Great though Irma was never actually per- unannounced appearances in school Learning, paragraph 5),with its instruc- formed by the Scratch Orchestra, it playgrounds, arriving without warning tion "No sound. Silent and still. Occa- might well have been, since it inhabits a and disappearing equally suddenly, with- sionally a movement watched by all, comparable intermediate area in visual out explanation. never more than one at a time. Sit in a and conceptual terms. semicircle like sculptured Pharaohs. . . . Visual events linked different occa- Very heavy music." sions and locations: Stefan Szczelkun's CHANGING DIRECTION Just as "any activity whatsoever" could silver disc, first seen against the sky sus- In the summer of 1971 internal dissen- be included in the category of perfor- pended in a rocky cleft in a quarry in sion about the orchestra's role and mance, so any kind of graphic material Cornwall, reappeared later in a concert policy began to emerge, and a "discon- came to be regarded as a possible form performance at Ealing Town Hall, Lon- tent" file was opened, in which members of notation: a look at Scratch Music re- don (1971). Among other pieces of pri- were encouraged to express their dis- veals a miscellany of drawings, diagrams, marily visual interest was Catherine agreements and criticisms. Energies maps, collages, texts, photographs and Williams's Strzng Games (1971) [15], for were refocused on building a "Scratch found objects (even some musical nota- groups of women weaving spatial pat- cottage" as part of the International Art tion) from the notebooks of 16 mem- terns with continuous lengths of string, Spectrum exhibition at Alexandra Pal- bers of the orchestra, laid out in random passing them from hand to hand and ace, North London, a temporary con- juxtaposition to suggest the visual then reversing the process. My own Walk struction collectively assembled from equivalent of a Scratch performance. (1969) [16], for any number of people found materials to a plan by Stefan Anything that could be set down on pa- walking in a large public space, was per- Szczelkun [18]. It housed the Refuse Col- per, it seemed, could become part of the formed in the forecourt at Euston Sta- lection of paintings, collages and assem- all-inclusive and indiscriminate category tion, London (23 May 1970), and else- blages by members of the orchestra and of "graphic music." Any kind of text or where; this involved walkers individually provided an informal space for perfor- image came to be regarded as a possible criss-crossing the space at different ran- mance and discussion over a 2-week pe- incentive to performance, with rules for domly determined speeds, waiting for riod in August 1971. The search for a interpretation either left completely different lengths of time at chosen new socially committed role gathered open, or implicitly suggested, as in Tom points and then setting off in another support; members worked collectively on Phillips's Postcard Compositions (op. XI): direction. At Euston this naturally inter- the composition of a Scratch opera, Sweet "Buy a postcard. Assume that it depicts sected with the activities of bonafide trav- FA [19] (1971-1972), depicting scenes the performance of a piece. Deduce the elers as they hurried or waited for their from the orchestra's clash with police rules of the piece. Perform it" [14]. trains. Another version of Walk used a and officials at the Newcastle Civic Cen- wide range of different kinds of walk, tre in July 1971. This marked the transi- suggested by participants: e.g. the John tion from a diverse range of anarchist EVENTS AND SITUATIONS Cleese walk (knee raised to chin level at and libertarian attitudes and sympathies Phillips had become involved with ex- each step) and the Ghost walk (a mili- to a more specifically political (Maoist) perimental music during the 1960s tary tactic for advancing stealthily outlook; visual talents were redirected to through his association with Cardew and through dense jungle). functional, "agitprop" uses-designing Tilbury; he made frequent allusion in In addition to more-or-less planned posters, banners and painted backdrops. his paintings and drawings to musical events, there was also a variety of infor- processes and materials and developed a mal activity, often spontaneous and un- THE PORTSMOUTH variety of oblique approaches to repre- recorded, which arose in response to cir- sentation through the use of found im- cumstances, crossing formal boundaries CONNECTION agery, text, calligraphy and musical no- and spilling over into everyday life, espe- Meanwhile, in the Department of Fine tation. He made graphic scores such as cially in street performances, as during Art at Portsmouth Polytechnic, the new Four Piecesfor John Tilbury (1966) and the Richmond Journq in May 1970: walk- emphasis on diversity in art education Gapmap (1968), a drawing consisting of ing backwards or crawling through a gave rise to a unique set of conditions for a row of vertical lines at chance-deter- shopping center, handing out leaves in a the development of experimental music mined intervals: this was done for Brian supermarket, improvising on under- [20]. On the initiative of Jeffrey Steele, Eno, then a student at Winchester ground trains, a tug-of-war, ball game or Maurice Dennis and visiting artists such School of Art, to determine the time- other impromptu activity. Greg Bright's as Noel Forster and David Saunders, a structure of a performance. Phillips's Tools, Tea and Smoke (performed at strong theoretical and administrative ba- opera Irma (1969) is a graphic score de- Ealing Town Hall in February 1971) sis for the inclusion of music in the Fine rived from the same source as his specified that the actions of sawing, Art course was established in 1968. First "treated" book A Humument, in which hammering and smoking were to be Ron Geesin, then , was ap- words and phrases from the text of a rhythmically co-coordinated, while tea- pointed lecturer in music, and in 1970 Victorian novel are selected and linked making proceeded independently. when Bryars moved to Leicester, I took

8 Parsons, The Scratch Orchestra and Visual Arts over his position on a part-time basis. (1969-1970), in which he discussed for- formance art, in which there is a long There were regular visits to Portsmouth mal systems and rule-governed proce- history of interest in mistakes, accidents by Cardew and Tilbury, , dures, taking into account how devia- and deviations from recognized struc- , Howard Skempton tions could arise from following through ture reaching back to the early years of and other members of the Scratch Or- a rational program of decision-making; Dada and Surrealism, to the work of Arp, chestra. Opportunities for working to- the "optical" effects that arose in his own Schwitters, Picabia and Duchamp, for gether on musical projects, offering a paintings in the 1960s, for example, which there is no exact precedent or par- marked contrast to individual studio- were regarded as interesting side effects allel in the history of music. based painting and sculpture, were rather than intentional results of the use M"nile it was certainly the most widely seized upon with enthusiasm by an un- of systems. Noel Forster gave a lecture, publicized, the Sinfonia was by no usually energetic and imaginative group "The Painting as a Measure of Its Own means the only group to emerge from of students. The Portsmouth Sinfonia Performance" (1970) in which he de- the Department of Fine Art in Ports- was formed in May 1970, initially to play scribed ways in which error and devia- mouth at this time. There was the Ross Rossini's William Tell Overture (then tion from a planned program contrib- and Cromarty Orchestra, formed in popularized as the theme of the Lone uted to the development of his own 1970 by Ivan Hume Carter to perform Ranger T\' series) at an end-of-term en- work. John Tilbury worked with students pieces of exemplary simplicity for play- tertainment. They were immediately in- on pieces from Brecht's Water Yarn, many ers of elementary technical skill. In 1971 vited to take part in Beethoven Today, the of which dealt with visual aspects of mu- Hume Carter gave a lecture, "Deviations Scratch Orchestra's idiosyncratic and sical performance; soon pianos, violins from Conventional Scale Structure" (in provocative celebration of the Beethoven and other instruments, displaced from the Department of Fine Art at Ports- bicentenary at the South Bank in Lon- their customary functions, began to ap- mouth), which was illustrated with per- don the following September. pear as visual objects in films made at formances by Patsie Harrison, an alleg- The avowed aim of the Portsmouth Portsmouth. The students became famil- edly tone-deaf singer whose wayward Sinfonia was to perform popular classi- iar, through Bryars, with Cage's reappro- sense of pitch and confident delivery for cal pieces as accurately as possible with priation of classical material in works a while provided a rich source of unpre- players of limited technical ability and such as HPSCHD (1967) and with the dictable melodic variants. This gradually experience. Some of them were com- work ofJohn MThite,Christopher Hobbs became exhausted, as with practice her plete beginners who acquired second- and other English composers who were control grew more accurate, and the fo- hand instruments specially to take part using found musical material from vari- cus of attention shifted from interest in in the Sinfonia's performances, learning ous sources. Further encouragement, if deviations as such to the learning pro- through trial and error as they went any were needed, was provided by the cess and its social implications. along; their commitment and enthusi- section on popular classics in Cardew's asm more than made up for the lack of Draft Constitution. Exception was taken, conventional skills. Technical shortcom- however, to the phrase "filling in gaps CONFLICTING IMPULSES ings were here turned to positive advan- with improvised variational material": in The Ross and Crolnarty Orchestra was tage as an agent of transformation, and performances by the Portsmouth disbanded in 1972 as a result of political processes of deviation and decontrol- Sinfonia there was no improvisation as tensions and disagreements similar to long regarded as legitimate in the visual such, but always an attempt to play as those that affected the Scratch Orches- arts (in the works of Pollock, de accurately as possible, given the circum- tra. Hume Carter repudiated his previ- Kooning, Johns and Rauschenberg, for stances; variation arose naturally from ous involvement with the Sinfonia and example)-were transposed into a musi- differences of ability and from the wide other experimental activities, and like cal context with unexpected and often disparity between intentions and results. Cardew and others turned to writing mu- hilarious results. The Portsmouth Sinfonia soon out- sic intended to senre proletarian inter- While it shared much of the general grew its art-school origins and expanded ests. Another group made up largely of background of the Scratch Orchestra, to include a wide range of artists and Portsmouth musicians was the Majorca music at Portsmouth soon developed its musicians including (among others) Orchestra, a chamber formed own distinctive characteristics, arising , Steve Beresford, Michael in 1972 to play music composed by its from the convergence of several cur- Nyman and Barry Flanagan. It achieved members (including James Lampard, rents of thought and practice in music extensive publicity and a degree of noto- Robin Mortimore, Sue Astle, Suzette and visual arts. The presence of Gavin riety in a series of concerts in London U'orden and David Saunders) and pieces Bryars, recently returned from working and elsewhere, culminating in a perfor- by Ezra Read, an Edwardian composer of in the U.S. with Cage, acted as catalyst: mance at the Royal Albert Hall on 28 popular and educational music [22]. he introduced students to a wide range May 1974. Its success owed as much to vi- The Majorca Orchestra's sober and un- of new music, including that of Cage, sual as to musical characteristics: to its deviating renderings of straightforward Brecht, Young, Lucier, Ichiyanagi and colorful and heterogeneous stage pres- melodies, and their refusal in this con- various Fluxus composers. His own work ence and air of professional confidence, text of any suggestion of irony or carica- at this time was largely conceptual and to the incongruity of the expectations it ture, were in marked contrast to the per- speculative, often deliberately propos- aroused and to the flamboyance of its formances of the Sinfonia, of which they ing improbable situations and condi- conductor John Farley, whose visual flair were also members; here their approach tions of performance in which results far outweighed his lack of technical com- emulated the newfound interest in me- were bound to exceed or fall short of in- petence and his inability to read a score. lodic immediacy of pieces such as tentions [Zl]. Jeffrey Steele gave a Such an enterprise is unthinkable out- Skempton's Waltz (1970), or John course of lectures, System and the Artist side the broad context of visual and per- Tilbury's rediscovery of the popular ap-

Parsons, The Scratch Orchestra and Visual Arts 9 peal of Albert M! Ketelbey's Bells across sual works by Systems artists, and in 1972 of some of its more anarchic tendencies, the Meadows (1921) [23]. the Promenade Theatre Orchestra from a formal and aesthetic rather than (PTO), a group of four composers-per- from a political point of view. DISCIPLINE AND WEDOM formers (Alec Hill, Christopher Hobbs, Hugh Shrapnel and John White) play- Within the Scratch Orchestra also, in ing their own compositions on reed or- contrast to the loosely structured charac- gans, toy pianos and percussion, per- It is clear in retrospect that experimen- ter of many of the earlier events, there formed in association with the Systems tal music in Britain, as in the United was an opposing tendency towards more exhibition at the M'hitechapel Gallery in States, has owed much of its distinctive disciplined forms of music-making. For London. At the same time Brian Dennis character to the influence and example many of the composers involved these was writing pieces influenced by the vi- of developments in the visual arts. The tendencies were complementary rather sual symmetry and repetitive patterns of principles of indeterminacy and open than in conflict with each other; the ap- painters such as Robin Denny and form, the use of collage and assemblage, parent contradiction between control . The use of geometrical of juxtaposition and simultaneity, the and freedom gave rise to challenges that forms, modular structures and the incre- questioning of traditional hierarchies were positively stimulating. Cardew had mental progression of linear and spatial and values, the awareness of space and in 1968 organized the first British perfor- elements suggested a close parallel with silence and the emphasis on texture and mances of 's In C (1964) and similar musical processes [24]. materiality of sound all reflect a close LaMonte Young's Death Chant (1961), The terms of the relationship between involvement with visual and spatial con- works in which the use of elemental and composers and artists of the Systems cepts. They offer radical alternatives to static musical material and multiple rep- group were quite different from, indeed the conservatism of most other forms of etition played a dominant role, and diametrically opposed to, those of con- contemporary music, which are still these features, alongside graphic and in- current Fluxus-related tendencies. In- largely tied to narrative models of ex- determinate notation, were also promi- stead of involving the use of mixed me- pressive rhetoric and linear continuity. nent in parts of The Great Learning and in dia and the fusion of visual and musical It was this influx of ideas from outside compositions by other members of the elements, it was based on a common in- the musical mainstream that enabled orchestra. It was perhaps inevitable that terest in structural principles. With a few the Scratch Orchestra to break away the tendency towards anarchy in some of notable exceptions, the artists were not from traditional notions of order and the early Scratch performances should directly involved as performers: collabo- expression, and to realize briefly its Uto- provoke a counterreaction, and a more ration took the form rather of exchang- pian vision of open enquiry and unfet- controlled and determinate strand of ing and comparing ideas in discussions tered exploration, of an all-inclusive compositional activity soon reasserted it- and informal meetings. The search for form of social music-making and perfor- self in the work of John MThite,Christo- coherent connections took precedence mance, illuminated by the spirit of irrev- pher Hobbs, Howard Skempton and my- over the acceptance of chance coinci- erent humor, discovery and invention. self, Alec Hill, Hugh Shrapnel, Brian dences and arbitrary juxtapositions, and Dennis and others. White's "machine" concerts and exhibitions were organized compositions were particularly influen- with related but separate presentations References and Notes tial in providing a counterbalance to the of visual and musical work. The primary 1. Cornelius Carderr, "Towards an Ethic of Improvi- increasingly free and improvisatory ten- concern was now with formal clarity and sation'' (1968) in Reattsr Handbook (London: Peters dencies in Cardew's own work. The early Edition, 1971). from this viewpoint it was considered music of Steve Reich and Philip Glass that, given the difference of medium be- 2. Fzrst Ref1o7t of the .Vatzo?zal Adrrisory Counczl on Art was becoming known in Britain at this Educatfon (London: Her Majesty's Stationary Of- tween visual and musical work, the indis- time, and there was a general sense of a fice. 1960). criminate mixing of incompatible ele- return to fundamental musical proce- 3. The Scratch Orchestra grew out of Cardeds ex- ments could only give rise to confusion. dures. The use of repetitive sequences perimental music class at Morlev College (an adult It was found more satisfactory to respect education institute in South London). In addition to and rhythmic systems is characteristic of the boundaries of each medium so that musical colleagues and students of Cardew, among much of the music of this period, and it them Michael Chant, Christopher Hohhs, Richard correspondences and parallels on the was in this context that a different kind Reason, Hugh Shrapnel, Howard Skempton,John theoretical and structural level could be- Tilhury and John M'hite, and improvisers such as of relationship between composers and come evident. , Eddie Prerost and , the origi- visual artists began to emerge. nal membership included many participants from While this association with visual art- the visual arts: Greg Bright, Psi Ellison, Judith ists working in the tradition of Euro- Euren, Carole Finer, Dadand Diane Jackman, Tim SYSTEMSARTAND MUSIC Mitchell, Tom Phillips and Stefan Szczelkun. Among pean arose partly as a re- those who joined later were visual and performance In 1971 an association was formed with action to contradictions within the artists such as Birgit Burckhardt and Catherine Will- artists of the Systems group, initially as a Scratch Orchestra, it soon gained its iams. For its first two years the orchestra flourished as an anarchic and looselv structured collective. In result of the Portsmouth connection, own momentum and continued to de- 1971 an ideological group was formed to study with Jeffrey Steele and David Saunders, velop independently throughout the Marxist ideas, and after a struggle between opposing "experimental" and "political" factions, the orches- and then with Malcolm Hughes, Jean 1970s and 1980s. For composers it in- tra abandoned experimentalism and devoted itself Spencer, Peter Lowe, volved the process of redefining the lim- to specific political aims, in support of the British and others. A concert was given in June its of composition and establishing new working class movement and the cause of Irish inde- pendence. It finally disbanded in 1974. 1971 at the Arnolfini Gallery in Bristol, structural disciplines. At the time when in which Christopher Hobbs, Michael ideological divisions within the Scratch 4. Cornelius Cardew, "A Scratch Orchestra: Draft Constitution," in The L\Izuical 7imes uune 1969); re- Nyman, Howard Skempton and I partici- Orchestra were proving irreconcilable, printed in Cornelius Cardew, ed., Srratch Xz~szc pated, with the Matrix exhibition of vi- it helped to provide an implicit critique (London: Latimer, 1972).

10 Parsons, The Scratch Orchestra and Visual Arts 5. For further information on the work of George 13. This score was published in Source, ,lIuszr ofthe member tries to exchange looks with another, that Brecht, see , Experzmental lbfusic: Avant Garde, Issue 10 (1972). It is now available one is looking at someone else, so that no look is Cage and Beyond (London: Studio ITista, 1974); from: Matchless Music, 2 Shetlocks Cottages, reciprocated; and Jt'ittgenstezn Walk, in which three Michael Nynan, "Interview with George Brecht," in Matching Tye, Harlow CMl7 OQS, L.K. performers walking in an open space represent the Studio International (November-December 1976) relative motions of the sun, earth and moon. (A?tand Expwzrnental MZLSICissue). 14. Tom Phillips, Postra~dCompositions, in Cardew, Sr?atrh ~Mz~szc[4]. 23. John Tilbury included music by Ketelbey in a 6. Unsigned Fluxus manifesto (probably by George recital at the Pnrcell Room (9 October 1970) as Maciunas) in V TRE 3 (New York: 1964) 15. Catherine Williams, Stn'ng Games, in Scratch An- part of his series 1'010 Solo. Christopher Hobbs, in tholog, of Compositzons, Cornelius Cardew ed. (Lon- his program note to this recital, discussed the redis- 7. Colnellus Cardew, "The Sounds of LaMonte don: Scratch Orchestra, 1971). covery by English experimental musicians of popu- Young," in London lZ1agazzn~(Aprll 1967) 16. Michael Parsons, IZ'nlk, in Nyman, Experimental lar music by earlier composers, "satisfying as it does Muszr [5]. the desire for melody, harmony, nostalgia, all the 8. Philip Dadson, Ea?thworks (19il), in Jim Allen qualities missing from Boulez, let us say." and Wystan Curnow, eds., Some Recent ,VpW Zealand 17. Greg Bright, "Tools, Tea and Smoke," in l'isual Sculptz~reand Post-Object Art (Auckland, New an tho log^, Gavin Bryars, ed. (London: Experimental 24. See Michael Parsons, "Systems in Art and Mu- Zealand: Heinemann, 1976). Music Catalogue, 1974). sic," in The Musical T~mes(October 1976) 9. Members of the orchestra were encouraged to 18. A photograph of the Scratch cottage at keep a record of research into any subjects of their Alexandra Palace appears on the rear co\er of choice; results of this research were to be given Nlman, Expmnlental lMuszc [5]. "musical realization" (never clearly defined)-inso- far as they seemed relevant to themes of perfor- 19. "Sweet FA is a well-known British slang expres- mances based on the idea of a journey (as in the fol- sion meaning "nothing much" or "nothing at all." lowing example). Michael Parsons has been active as a com- 20. See Jeffrey Steele, "Collaborative Work at Ports- poser and performer since the mid-1960s. In 10. Cardew, Scratch ~\lz~szc[4]; and Cornelius mouth," in Studio International (November/Decem- Cardew, ed., Nature Stz~djNotes (London, The ber 1976) 1969 he was co-founder with Cornelius Scratch Orchestra, 1969), containing the Scratch Cardew and Howard Skempton of the Scratch Orchestra's collection of "improvisation rites." 21. See pieces by Gavin Bryars in Bryars [17]. Orchestra. During the 1970s and 1980s he 11. Michael Chant, Pastoral Symphony (1969),verbal 22. Another group that existed at Portsmouth for a participated in mixed-media projects with the score, in Cardew, Srratch ~Muslc[4]; reprinted in short time (1972-1973) was the Visual Research London Musicians' Collective, including the Nyman, Experimental Music [5]. Ensemble, which performed (mainly) silent pieces, staged work Expedition to the North including a Lookingpiece derived from a passage in 12. The complete list of 1001 Activities appears in Samuel Beckett's novel blhtt, in which the attempt (1984), which he dmised and presented with Cardew, Scratch lMuszc [4]. of a committee to look at itself is frustrated: as each Max Eastlq.

Pa?sons. The Scratch Orchestra and ITisualArts 11