Electric Cowboy Cacophony / A performance and recording fusing musical elements from the classical, rock, country, and free electronic tradititions

There has to be some degree, not just of unfamiliarity, but incompatibility [with a partner]. Otherwise, what are you improvising for?' (Derek Bailey)

In making music, how is the methodology of classically-trained composers different from that of rock/pop/jazz/improvising musicians? There is of course the classical approach of composing in advance of the performance, using manuscript paper and traditional notation: the tension between slowly-wrought formal structure and improvised musical development then. There is also the distinction between composer and performer, which in the case of the pop/rock musician is often one and the same person but in the classical tradition more frequently is not.

Nevertheless, by no means is all rock/pop/jazz music improvised: some of it is composed with or performed from traditional notation. Apart from this though, are the creative considerations really so at odds? Do musicians with radically different musical backgrounds--so different apparently that the Germans refer to music by composers out of the classical tradition as 'Serious Music' ('Ernste Musik') and that from the rock/pop/jazz tradition only, and quite pejoratively, as 'Entertainment Music' ('Unterhaltungs Musik')--do these musicians really think so differently about making music as we might perhaps believe? Scores and notation aside on the one hand, the three-minute song with a three-chord trick aside on the other, aren't many of us concerned with similar musical characteristics: texture, mood, musical voice exchange, sonority... Or, when moving in the areas of avant-garde classical, jazz, rock, free improvised, and pop music, isn't there perhaps more in common than not, in the intention of the music at least, if not always in the sound?

Electric Cowboy Cacophony is both a musical group and a concert performance. It comprises four musicians from very different backgrounds: Myself (UK), classical composer and computer musician; Paul Elwood (USA), composer and banjoist (country/folk/avant-garde); Jean-Marc Montera (France), electric guitarist and Chitarra player (rock, free improvisation); and Karin Schistek (Austria/UK), classical pianist and improvisor.

We first came together in Marseille, France, in February 2006 at the Groupe de Recherche et d'Improvisation Musicales (www.grim-marseille.com/) on the invitation of Jean-Marc Montera, GRIM's director. A day spent recording was followed later by a concert, both of which opened up enormous opportunity for meaningful musical exchange.

Playing together raised many questions, several of which are posed above. Answering these questions in this group context leads to broader steps towards bridging the gap between classical and pop/rock/jazz/improvised music, a gap which in the current cultural and educational climate is no longer tenable; a gap which is probably more political than musical; a gap which when bridged can enrich the musical experience of all.

A performance and recording project is proposed to explore these questions and find expressive modes of interaction between the group's members and aesthetics. We aim to work for a week in Marseille and develop enough musical material for a concert and DVD recording (c. one hour's music). The recording will be made at GRIM but mixed, edited, and mastered in Edinburgh. The DVD will be pressed and released on the sumtone label. Two concerts will then be presented, one in Marseille, the other in Edinburgh. A web-page detailing the work's progress and the results (in the form of MP3 files) will be made available also.

N.B. My musical instrument in this project is mainly the computer. Performances of my compositions with computer have to date been in a pre-determined and pre-programmed manner. I have lately reconfigured my performance software to allow integration into more open structures (improvisation) and intend to use and explore the potential of this software in the proposed project.