A Song for Barrow AFC
Though it is intended that the residency will have several outcomes, its main aspect will be the creation of a piece of experimental music based around the idea of a football as a performance.
Below is some background information on a few of the artists and composers that have influenced my thinking on the project so far:
Dick Raaijmakers – Ping Pong: a piece of music made by attaching two contact microphones to a table tennis table. Each side of the table is pitched a semi-tone apart and the piece is performed through the act of playing a game of table tennis.
Graphic Scores – examples of many of the most pioneering graphic scores can be found at the Pictures of Music site: www.blockmuseum.northwestern.edu/picturesofmusic/
One score I've been particularly interested in is Treatise by the english composer Cornelius Cardew. “There are few more impressive-looking conceptions than Cornelius Cardew's Treatise (1963-7), a 236-page graphic score of exquisite intricacy. Questions of what to play and how to play it are left to the performer(s)' discretion; though, as here, a degree of pre-performance planning helps reinforce the very definite continuity in texture and dynamics that the individual pages suggest. ”
"Robert Rauschenberg's Open Score was performed on October 14th, 1966. It began with a tennis game between Frank Stella and his tennis partner, Mimi Kanarek, on a full-scale court laid out on the Armory floor. Rauschenberg had adopted one of the oldest forms of performance that everyone recognizes, a tennis match, and made it into dance. He also used the game 'to control the lights and to perform as an orchestra.' Each time Frank or Mimi hit the ball a loud BONG vibrated around the Armory and the sound of each BONG switched off one of the lights illuminating the court…"
