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!! 1969-1972 SCRATCH ORCHESTRA ---- {br}{br} \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t ''My attitude is that the musical and the real worlds are one. Musicality is a dimension of perfectly ordinary reality.''{br}{small} — (Cornelius Cardew, In "[Towards an Ethic of Improvisation\|http://www.ubu.com/papers/cardew_ethics.html]", 1971){/small}{br}{br}^[Cornelius Cardew hopes that the Scratch Orchestra will^] ''shake the public out of its apathy ^[...^]'' {br}{small} — (Cornelius Cardew, In London Magazine, Volume 11, 1971){/small}{br}{br}{br}For a history of the Scratch Orchestra (1969-1972), please read orchestra member Rod Eley's and Cornelius Cardew's reports : '''[Stockhausen Serves Imperialism\|http://www.ubu.com/historical/cardew/index.html]''' and '''[pdf file\|http://www.ubu.com/historical/cardew/cardew_stockhausen.pdf]'''{br}{br}{br}{br}{br}{br}\|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \| \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t [../files/articles/cardew/cardew11a.jpg]{br}{small}— In Michael Nyman, ‘’Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond’’, 1999.{br}{br}{br}[../files/articles/cardew/cardew62.jpg\|../files/articles/cardew/cardew62_b.jpg]{br}{cap}([Michael Nyman, "Music Scratch and Co.", In The Spectator, 12 DECEMBER 1969, p. 33\|http://archive.spectator.co.uk/article/13th-december-1969/33/music-scratch-co]){br} — ^[[LARGE VIEW\|https://jeromejoy.org/files/articles/cardew/cardew62_b.jpg]^]{/cap}{/small}{br}{br}{br}{html}<hr nosize> <b>AUDIO</b>          <img src="https://jeromejoy.org/files/img/icon_audio.gif"><br><hr nosize> <DIV style="background-color:#CCCCCC;"> <small><b>Cornelius Cardew — Cornelius Cardew talking about the Scratch Orchestra</b> — (ca 4mn30)<br>BBC</small><br><br> <object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" data="webs/dewplayer-vol.swf" width="350" height="20" id="dewplayer" name="dewplayer"> <param name="wmode" value="transparent" /> <param name="movie" value="webs/dewplayer-vol.swf" /> <param name="flashvars" value="mp3=http://ubumexico.centro.org.mx/sound/cardew_cornelius/bbc/Cardew-Cornelius_BBC-Archive_01_Scratch-Orchestra-Interview.mp3&bgcolor=FFFFFF&showtime=1&autoplay=0&autoreplay=0&volume=100" /> </object> <br><br> </DIV> <br><small><i>Source : <A HREF="http://ubu.com/sound/cardew.html" target="_blank">Ubu.com</A></i></small> <br><br><br>{/html}\|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t In an interview for the BBC first heard in 1972, Cardew discussed the genesis and philosophy of the Scratch Orchestra :{br}C.C — The Scratch Orchestra came about in response to the demand of a lot of young people who weren’t trained musicians to get together to make what we called experimental music on a large scale. It has nothing in common with a conventional orchestra.{br}BBC — ’’Nonetheless it is people capable of playing music in the ordinary way.’’{br}C.C. — Well, not at all. These people may be visual artists, they may be people interested in theatre, they may be perfectly ordinary office workers or students or what have you. They’re not necessarily trained in playing any instrument at all. Some of them would perform activities of one kind or another, not necessarily producing sound, because scratch music was really a composite of people making their own activities, so that some of these activities would involve people playing conventional instruments like saxophones or flutes or this, that and the other. And other things would simply involve making motions with a hand or arranging a scarf, or all kinds of activities which would not necessarily make sound. The only limitation was that it should be fairly low-key, so as to allow somebody who wanted to express a solo to be able to do it on top of several people playing scratch music. ^[…^] We don’t actually mean it as though it was a fully-composed piece of music, because the essence of scratch music is that people are asked to write accompaniments, so each person writes accompaniments and plays these accompaniments and everybody else plays their accompaniments together. So in fact this whole body of sound that makes up a lot of people playing scratch music could be used as a background for somebody playing a solo, and in fact we can go on talking.{br}— {small} (from Peter Paul Nash, interview with Howard Skempton and John Tilbury, ‘Music Weekly’, BBC Radio 3, 26 november 1991. A recording of this broadcast is held at the British Music Information Centre, London ; and reproduced in [Timothy D. Taylor, 'Moving in Decency: The Music and Radical Politics of Cornelius Cardew', 1998\|https://www.academia.edu/488369/Moving_in_Decency_The_Music_and_Radical_Politics_of_Cornelius_Cardew]){/small}{br}{br}\| {br}{br} {br}{br}---- !!! Draft Constitution, May/June 1969 {small}Cornelius Cardew, Michael Parsons and Howard Skempton{br}''In The Musical Times, Vol. 110, No. 1516, 125th Anniversary Issue. (Jun., 1969), pp. 617+619''{br}''[version française\|http://www.cacbretigny.com/inhalt/pictures/FENETRE_Cardew/11_Documentation/2The%20Draft%20Cotution%20FR-UK.pdf]''{/small} [../files/articles/cardew/cardew60_draftconst_a.jpg] [../files/articles/cardew/cardew60_draftconst_b.jpg] {br}{br}---- !!! Nature Study Notes, June 1969 ''Nature Study Notes'', collection of 'Improvisation Rites' published a few months after the 'Draft Constitution'.{br}From the very beginning the Scratch Orchestra took a conscious decision to make all their notations freely distributable, stating that the ''Scratch Music'' works were without copyright. One of their first collections of scores, published in 1969 and called ''Nature Study Notes: Improvisation Rites'', replaced the conventional copyright notice with the following: \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t No rights are reserved in this book of rites. They may be reproduced and performed freely. Anyone wishing to send contributions for a second set should address them to the editor: C.Cardew, 112 Elm Grove Road, London SW13.{br}— {small}Scratch Orchestra, Nature Study Notes: Improvisation Rites 1969, edited by Cornelius Cardew, London: Scratch Orchestra, 1969.{/small}\| Whilst rejections of copyright restriction were nothing new, both the Situationists and the folk singer Woody Guthrie had placed anti-copyright notices on their works, it is notable that the Scratch Orchestra also encouraged others to modify and add to their scores, stating that these may be incorporated into the next version. The works in ''Nature Study Notes'' are all textual instruction pieces. Few of them describe ways of making sound however, and instead focus around various social interactions that construct and play with power relations amongst the performers. —{small}Simon Yuill, ["All Problems of Notation Will be Solved by the Masses: Free Open Form Performance, Free/Libre Open Source Software, and Distributive Practice"\|http://www.lipparosa.org/essays/problemsofnotation.pdf]{/small} ---- ''Nature Study Notes'' is a collection of 152 written instructions or ‘scores’ that was published as a booklet by Cornelius Cardew at the beginning of the Scratch Orchestra in 1969. The scores are called ‘rites’ and were used in many of the early Scratch Orchestra concerts. In both the sense of limitation and of instigation, the Rites act, not as improvisations, but as frames for improvisation.{br}{small}{cap}^[[download pdf Nature Study Notes score\|http://improarchive2.brinkster.net/sonsn.pdf]^]{/cap}{/small} ''Nature Study Notes'' is a collection of notations, largely text scores described as ‘improvisation rites’ ^[the others categories are ‘Scratch Music’, ‘Popular Classics’, ‘Compositions’, and ‘Research Project’.^], composed and collated by members of what we would now term a collective of artists, musicians, trouble-makers, and thinkers. By any objective analysis, a significant number of the notations that make up ''Nature Study Notes'' fail to “not attempt to influence the music that will be played”, but the importance of the “community of feeling” cannot be underestimated as the underlying motivation for the majority, if not all, of the notations. What fundamentally differed in the case of ''Nature Study Notes'' was that its preparation required the establishment of a number of small ensembles existing within the overall ensemble. many aspects of ''Nature Study Notes'' are clearly avant-garde: * the dissolution of individual identities (the Rites in Nature Study Notes are ordered numerically in the order in which they were composed, irrespective of the composer (although the identity of individual composers has been retained through the use of initials and the explanatory notes at the end), a process that Cardew was to take further in ''Scratch Music'' (Cardew 1972) with authorship only decipherable through a graphic index); * the necessity of the performer to interpret the notation and to invent the sounding (or non-sounding) result (thus dissolving the distinction between composer and sound-producer and thus art and life); * the dissolution between audience and performers (as related by Carole Chant as she recounted Scratch Orchestra performances in the 70s) (Chant 2014). [Lee Higgins\|http://leehigginscm.org/]’ (Higgins 2012) exploration of [community music\|https://yorksj.academia.edu/LeeHiggins] as a field outside of formal institutions (Higgins 2012, 5) (and, one assumes, profit-driven circumstances) opens up a second avenue of attack to ''Nature Study Notes''. Although arguably the whole ethos of the Scratch Orchestra at the point of its founding was to dissolve leadership hierarchies, Cardew felt unable to resist his coronation as benign monarch (Tilbury 2008), and as a “skilled music leader”, facilitated the “group music-making experiences” (Higgins 2012, 5).{br} Arguably, much of Cardew’s work (especially if we consider the Scratch Orchestra as such) aims to do just this: educate performers to become not just better performers but better human beings. This aim was attenuated significantly when he discovered and was converted to the teachings of the Marxist-Leninist party but runs as a thread throughout much of his endeavours. For Higgins as for Cardew, music and working through music holds the key to preparing for the future (although Cardew was to lose faith in music’s ability to do anything as he busied himself in the work of the Party) and Higgins writes that “Activating a cultural democracy to come requires interstitial practices, one for which intervention, invention, dreaming, and faith form a backbone through which hospitality and friendship can emerge as a strategic praxis” (Higgins 2012, 173). This description could stand equally for the work of the Scratch Orchestra as for community music. —{small}John Hails, ["Performing the Scratch Orchestra’s Nature Study Notes: creating and exploring a third sphere through improvised communal action."\|http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/7657/1/Performing_the_Scratch_Orchestra.pdf]{/small} {br}{br} {small}Documentation :{/small} * {small}John Hails, "Performing the Scratch Orchestra’s Nature Study Notes: creating and exploring a third sphere through improvised communal action." http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/7657/1/Performing_the_Scratch_Orchestra.pdf {/small} * {small}Carl Bergstrøm-Nielsen, "Words as Music Notation (1998/2012)" http://vbn.aau.dk/files/65612885/Words_as_Music_Notation_1998_2012.pdf {/small} * {small}Michael Chant, "Music, Society and Progress" http://www.cornelius-cardew-concerts-trust.org.uk/papers/paper_02_chant.pdf {/small} * {small}Simon Yuill, "All Problems of Notation Will be Solved by the Masses: Free Open Form Performance, Free/Libre Open Source Software, and Distributive Practice" http://www.lipparosa.org/essays/problemsofnotation.pdf {/small} * {small}http://www.ewaeckerle.com/projectbox/Scratch-Orchestra/ {/small} * {small}https://szczelkuns.wordpress.com/2015/02/20/sunday-evening-at-cafe-oto-neo-scratch-orchestra-performance-based-on-nature-study-notes/ (with an audio radio programme by Carole Finer){/small} * {small}Lee Higgins, & Mantie, R. (2013). [Improvisation as Ability, Culture, and Experience\|https://www.academia.edu/5372572/Higgins_L._and_Mantie_R._2013_._Improvisation_as_Ability_Culture_and_Experience._Music_Education_Journal_100_2_38-44]. Music Education Journal, 100(2), 38-44.{br} https://www.academia.edu/5372572/Higgins_L._and_Mantie_R._2013_._Improvisation_as_Ability_Culture_and_Experience._Music_Education_Journal_100_2_38-44 {/small} * {small}Lee Higgins. (2012). Community Music: In Theory and Practice. Oxford University Press.{/small} * {small}Lee Higgins (2012). [One-to-One Encounters: Facilitators, Participants, and Friendship\|https://www.academia.edu/3629833/Higgins_L._2012_._One-to-One_Encounters_Facilitators_Participants_and_Friendship._Theory_into_Practice_51_3_159-166]. Theory into Practice, 51(3), 159-166.{br} https://www.academia.edu/3629833/Higgins_L._2012_._One-to-One_Encounters_Facilitators_Participants_and_Friendship._Theory_into_Practice_51_3_159-166 {/small} * {small}Lee Higgins (2008). [Community Music and the Welcome\|https://www.academia.edu/3629900/Higgins_L._2008_._Community_Music_and_the_Welcome._International_Journal_of_Community_Music_1_3_391-400]. International Journal of Community Music, 1(3), 391-400.{br} https://www.academia.edu/3629900/Higgins_L._2008_._Community_Music_and_the_Welcome._International_Journal_of_Community_Music_1_3_391-400 {/small} * {small}Lee Higgins. (2006). [Boundary-Walkers: Contexts and Concepts of Community Music\|https://leehigginscommunitymusic.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/boundary-walkers-lee-higgins-phd-2006.pdf]. Ph.D. University of Limerick, Limerick.{br} https://leehigginscommunitymusic.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/boundary-walkers-lee-higgins-phd-2006.pdf {/small} * {small}^[[download pdf Nature Study Notes score\|http://improarchive2.brinkster.net/sonsn.pdf]^]{/small} {br}{br} \|t [../files/articles/cardew/cardew61_nature_a.jpg] \|t [../files/articles/cardew/cardew61_nature_b.jpg]\| \|t [../files/articles/cardew/cardew61_nature_f.jpg\|../files/articles/cardew/cardew61_nature_f_b.jpg] \|t [../files/articles/cardew/cardew61_nature_g.jpg\|../files/articles/cardew/cardew61_nature_g_b.jpg]\| \|t [../files/articles/cardew/cardew61_nature_h.jpg\|../files/articles/cardew/cardew61_nature_h_b.jpg] \|t [../files/articles/cardew/cardew61_nature_i.jpg\|../files/articles/cardew/cardew61_nature_i_b.jpg]\| \|t [../files/articles/cardew/cardew61_nature_j.jpg\|../files/articles/cardew/cardew61_nature_j_b.jpg] \|t [../files/articles/cardew/cardew61_nature_k.jpg\|../files/articles/cardew/cardew61_nature_k_b.jpg]\| \|t [../files/articles/cardew/cardew61_nature_l.jpg\|../files/articles/cardew/cardew61_nature_l_b.jpg] \|t [../files/articles/cardew/cardew61_nature_m.jpg\|../files/articles/cardew/cardew61_nature_m_b.jpg]\| \|t [../files/articles/cardew/cardew61_nature_n.jpg\|../files/articles/cardew/cardew61_nature_n_b.jpg] \|t [../files/articles/cardew/cardew61_nature_o.jpg\|../files/articles/cardew/cardew61_nature_o_b.jpg]\| \|t [../files/articles/cardew/cardew61_nature_p.jpg\|../files/articles/cardew/cardew61_nature_p_b.jpg] \|t [../files/articles/cardew/cardew61_nature_q.jpg\|../files/articles/cardew/cardew61_nature_q_b.jpg]\| \|t [../files/articles/cardew/cardew61_nature_r.jpg\|../files/articles/cardew/cardew61_nature_r_b.jpg] \|t [../files/articles/cardew/cardew61_nature_s.jpg\|../files/articles/cardew/cardew61_nature_s_b.jpg]\| \|t [../files/articles/cardew/cardew61_nature_t.jpg\|../files/articles/cardew/cardew61_nature_t_b.jpg] \|t \| {br}{br}---- !!! July 1, 1969 An organizational meeting of the Scratch Orchestra takes place at St. Katherine’s Dock, London, led largely by Cornelius Cardew. {br}{br}---- !!! Sept. 30, 1969 The first playing meeting of the Scratch Orchestra takes place at St. Katherine’s Dock, London organized by Cornelius Cardew. {br}{br}---- !!! Nov. 1, 1969 The first performance of the Scratch Orchestra takes place in Hampstead Town Hall.{br}Had you attended a Scratch Orchestra concert you would have been reminded more of a workshop or schoolroom or market place or even farmyard than of a concert hall. The first concert in Hampstead Town Hall found a large number of participants spread generously over stage and floor engaged, mostly individually, in activities aural, visual and ambulatory. Sitting in your seat, you might have heard nothing but a recording of The Nun's Chorus' from Casanova (which because it was amplified tended, unfortunately, to colour everything else -otherwise their performances are blissfully free from electronics, from the at- titude which dictates that everything that sounds be amplified or ring-modulated). But had you wished to sample all the wares you would have found a very carefully prepared and executed performance of Cardew's ''The Great Digest Paragraph 6'', early rock records and 'Teddy Bears Picnic', sound poetry from Bob Cobbing, a lone cello, toy instruments, home-made instruments, games of patience and many other things all happening independently and innocently of each other and structured according to the particular `scores' that the performers had chosen to realise. — {small}([Michael Nyman, "Music Scratch and Co.", In The Spectator, 12 DECEMBER 1969, p. 33\|http://archive.spectator.co.uk/article/13th-december-1969/33/music-scratch-co]){/small}{br}The first four Scratch Orchestra concerts took place in November 1969 at Hampstead, Islington, Chelsea and Ealing Town Halls on the 1, 8, 15, and 25 November respectively. — {small} (In John Tilbury, "Cornelius Cardew, a life unfinished"){/small} {br}{br}---- !!! Nov. 8, 1969 The second concert (Islington Town Hall) had a totally different flavour. There were more group activities--chanting remote cabbalistic rituals or playing in trios or quartets of oddly assorted instruments. There were also striking `solos'—especially Cardew's musical ponds, lined with manuscript paper, from which he fished, with magnets and balloons on lines, manuscript fish. — {small}([Michael Nyman, "Music Scratch and Co.", In The Spectator, 12 DECEMBER 1969, p. 33\|http://archive.spectator.co.uk/article/13th-december-1969/33/music-scratch-co]){/small} {br}{br}---- !!! Nov. 15, 1969, Journey of the Isle of Wight Westwards by Iceberg to Tokyo Bay The first Scratch Orchestra performance based on a Research Project takes place in Chelsea Town Hall.{br}On November the 15th 1969, Cornelius Cardew's Scratch Orchestra performed at Chelsea Town Hall ''Realization of the Journey of the Isle of Wight Westwards by Iceberg to Tokyo Bay'', a piece based on Brecht's Translocations, in London. Other imagined moves included Cuba moving alongside Miami, and Iceland moving next to Spain.{br}The [recording\|http://beta.worldcat.org/archivegrid/collection/data/52641079] was made by Frank Regan and Roger Waight on a Uher portable. {br}{br}---- !!! Nov. 25, 1969 The fourth concert (Ealing) was a more clear cut affair—the Bach Toccata and Fugue in D minor, a number of single events each simultaneously stretched over an hour (producing some remarkable slow-motion effects) and an adequate performance of Terry Riley's In C (a work which proves Stravinsky's dictum that there is still a lot of good music to be written in C major).{br}What then is the Scratch Orchestra, this seemingly anarchic organisation, intensely proud of its written constitution, whose origins arc by the English tradition of amateur music-making out of John Cage? It might be called a democratic musical commune whose repertoire, in the form of improvisation rites, accompaniments of any kind, popular classics and composed works, is both communally added to and selected (each member has to keep his own Scratch Book in which he notates and stores his personal contributions). In a format which imaginatively combines freedom and prescription, diverse talents seem happy to flourish to the extent of their abilities and needs.{br}Such an approach takes music-making down from the tight-rope it walks on the South Bank where the qualities of stress, permanence, competitiveness, ambition, originality, the need for a 'good notice' can smother any genuine creative impulse. The Scratch Orchestra is not concerned with these things. Its members are mostly not trained musicians, yet professionals like Cardew and John Tilbury play happily and comfortably, and if some of the activities seem a little aimless perhaps, you should remember that the plant is very young and tender but its growth is already strong and purposeful. — {small}([Michael Nyman, "Music Scratch and Co.", In The Spectator, 12 DECEMBER 1969, p. 33\|http://archive.spectator.co.uk/article/13th-december-1969/33/music-scratch-co]){/small} {br}{br}{br}{br} ''(in progress)'' {html} <!-- <TABLE BORDER="0"> <TR> <TD WIDTH="700"> Cardew helped form the Scratch Orchestra in 1969. The collective grew out of a composition class he taught at Morley College in London, and contained a large, rotating group of performers both professional and amateur, including members of AMM. "Anyone could join, provided they were enthusiastic," orchestra member Michael Parsons, a member of Cardew's Morley class, recalled in a 2002 interview with the Birmingham Post. "A lot were visual artists. The art schools were breaking down barriers, and they were often more receptive to new ideas." </TD> </TR> </TABLE> --> {/html} {html} <!-- {br}{br} {br}{br} Over the next few years, the Scratch Orchestra would blossom. Estimates differ, but at its height around 1970, there was a floating membership of between 100 and 200, clustered around a hardcore of 30-odd regulars. Concerts took place often – some 70 in that year alone – in venues like village halls, train stations, art schools, pubs, the London Underground, and the boating lake at Regent’s Park. One day at London’s National Gallery, the group performed a “collective shout” upon an agreed signal. Outside in Trafalgar Square, a performance of Orchestra member David Jackman’s “Pigeon Event” took place, in which drawings were made with birdseed to be transformed and, ultimately, consumed/erased by birds. One concert, fondly remembered by the members I spoke to, took place at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on the 23rd November 1970. This was to be a “Pilgrimage from Scattered Points on the Surface of the Body to the Brain, the Heart, the Stomach and the Inner Ear.” For research, they went to the cinema to watch Richard Fleischer’s 1966 film Fantastic Voyage. Along the way, the improvisation and spirited chanting (for a Michael Parsons piece, based on a 4th century Buddhist text) were interspersed with elements of Mahler’s Sixth Symphony (representing the brain), Eurovision winner “Boom-Bang-a-Bang” (the heart), and Terry Riley’s In C (middle ear). Following Napoleon’s dictum that an army marches on its stomach, Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture was performed as a game of table tennis that ended when the score reached 18 -12.{br}If there were few rules about what Scratch music might consist of, Cardew did insist upon self-discipline and a lack of egocentricity. “The one thing that you couldn’t do,” Michael Parsons told, “was drown out other people. Anyone could play whatever they wanted, as long as it wasn’t too dominant.”{br}But as the decade progressed, the threads started to unravel. Bryn Harris recalls it all starting on a tour of the North-East of England. A gig outside Newcastle Civic Centre brought the group into conflict, first with a security guard, then a group of skinheads. No damage was caused and no one got hurt, but the invaders did create a mess with some toilet rolls that Cardew had been illustrating with pornographic pictures as part of an improvisation rite that demanded, “Act as obscenely as you can until the authorities intervene.” The event got picked up by the press as “Prof’s Toilet-roll Orchestra.” Gigs got cancelled, funding sources were put in jeopardy. By June 1971 (after the Notting Hill Carnival) there was total disillusionment with the Scratch Orchestra in its then present form (p.22), and it began to disintegrate. (p.23) “… performances of Cardew’s The Great Learning (a recording for Deutsche Grammophon and a performance at St Pancras Church) brought members back together”, but (p.24) audience reaction continued to be unfavourable. A section of the Scratch Orchestra was reduced to “shock tactics” – weird costumes and “raids” on school playgrounds – to maintain interest. An open air event took place on the Dorset coast in February 1971, but passed almost unnoticed (p.25) A low point was reached on a tour of the North East with Greg Bright’s piece Sweet FA , which consisted mainly of writing four-letter swear words on lavatory paper. Members of the Scratch Orchestra were devoting themselves more and more to political matters. Following the Discontents meeting in August 1971, John Tilbury presented “a Marxist analysis of the deterioration and vacuity of bourgeois cultural activity.” It is interesting that a couple of years later he was touring Eastern Europe with recitals of Classical music (p.29). Following a Summer School the Scratch Orchestra reformed to “practice music and encourage the flow of new pieces ^[presumably fully composed^] and to raise the level of public performance by proper rehearsal for concerts.” (p.30) The group splintered in 1971 due to disparate political views, with a faction led by Cardew, Tilbury, and Rowe maintaining the name and following Marxist-Leninist political theories. Cardew's work began to show a growing political consciousness, based on Communist fundamentals, during this time. Originally the Scratch Orchestra was seen as merely subversive, having the intention of opposing the established values of both “serious” and “popular” bourgeois music. Nevertheless it eventually became positively politicised. “John Tilbury gave a talk on Marxism ^[at a Summer School in 1971, which was^] the first open effort to raise the political consciousness of the Orchestra”. (p.29). Rod Eley’s chapter ends with a number of slogans: SMASH THE DECAYING IDEOLOGICAL AND CULTURAL SUPERSTRUCTURE! SMASH THE BOURGEOIS CLASS AND ITS CORRUPT CAPITALIST SYSTEM! DOWN WITH IMPERIALISM! Even so, Eley continues to talk about “audience” – surely a bourgeois concept! The development of technology – recording, electronic generation, etc. – threatened the livelihood of “live” musicians, particularly in film and broadcasting. He also, rightly, attacks the “star” system, lamenting: (p.16) “… the domination of the entire capitalist world by a few British and American [pop] groups.” However, he doesn’t take into account the rise of interest in ‘world music’ and of, particularly, Indian popular culture. The ‘star system’ also applied to the world of “classical” music where a relatively few “star” performers and conductors dominate and even fewer living composers get fully professional performances in major concert venues. The recognised canon of regularly performed composers from the past was augmented by the “period performance” movement which began in earnest in the 1970s. This also gave rise to the growth of specialist vocal and instrumental performers, but very quickly the market was cornered by a select group of “experts” each with his or her particular theory of authentic practice which was as esoteric and exclusive as anything in the “contemporary classical” field, or indeed in the field of classical music in general. The Scratch Orchestra turned out to have very limited appeal. It started with a certain amount of optimism. (p.17) “… from November 1969 to July 1970 there were seven concerts between November and January, six during April-May, 1 in June, plus a BBC recording of Paragraph 2 of Cardew’s Confucian The Great Learning. There was also a two-week tour, 27 July-7 August, visiting village halls in Cornwall and Anglesea.” But he admits (p.18) that “… despite some television coverage in December 1969 in addition to the many concerts, the Scratch Orchestra did not catch on with the general public.” Cardew’s leadership vindicated the Marxist concept of natural leadership (pp19-20). (p.20) “The true potential strength of the Scratch Orchestra lies with its membership, and its future reflection of the militant, revolutionary aspirations and struggles of the proletariat in an artistic form.” In fact it did nothing of the kind. The Scratch Orchestra, like its successor CoMA (Contemporary Music for Amateurs), and indeed the erstwhile Workers’ Education Association for that matter, came to have nothing to do with any “proletarian struggle”, but came to be the exclusive province of the “liberal-intellectual” middle class. Cardew and his associates saw the “working class” as extending up through the professional middle class to include anyone who worked for as living, including professional musicians. In fact the “middle class”, as defined by home and car ownership, travel abroad, etc., has since the “Thatcher revolution” of the 1980s, been extended downwards to include the majority of the former “working class”. In 1974 the Scratch Orchestra formally changed its name to the Red Flame Proletarian Propaganda Team. They now mostly played transcriptions of Irish folk songs and revolutionary tunes from China. Not long after, they were discontinued altogether. Over the years that followed, Cardew got deeper and deeper into political organisation, never stinting in his urge to sacrifice artistry at the altar of the revolution. But when Szczelkun saw him performing a Songs of Resistance concert at St. Pancras Town Hall in 1976, he couldn’t help but feel their old Orchestra had represented something far more inclusive, more grassroots. “Please don’t reject lessons of Scratch,” he wrote to his old friend afterwards. {br}{br}---- --> {/html} {br}{br} {br}{br}---- {html} <hr nosize><hr style="height: 6px; margin: -0.5em 0; padding: 0; color: grey; background-color: grey; border: 0;"><br> {/html} !!! Scratch Orchestra, Ealing Town Hall, 1970 ---- [https://jeromejoy.org/files/articles/cardew/cardew11.jpg\|https://jeromejoy.org/files/articles/cardew/cardew11b.jpg] {br}{br} [https://jeromejoy.org/files/articles/cardew/cardew11_SO_EalingTownHall_1970.jpg\|https://jeromejoy.org/files/articles/cardew/cardew11_SO_EalingTownHall_1970_b.jpg] {br}{br}---- {br}{br} {br}{br}---- {html} <hr nosize><hr style="height: 6px; margin: -0.5em 0; padding: 0; color: grey; background-color: grey; border: 0;"><br> {/html} !!! Scratch Orchestra, 1970 ---- {br}{br}---- \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t [https://jeromejoy.org/files/articles/cardew/cardew5.jpg]\|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t 1970 — John Tilbury tied up in Hugh Shrapnel’s « Houdini Rite » with Bryn Harris (drums) and Alec Hill (saxophone), which featured performers bound together by ropes - struggled against the confines of the European concert tradition. The performer is instructed to bind himself in rope, and perform on an instrument of his choice.{br}{small}— from the television film "Journey to the North Pole", director Hanne Boenisch, 1971, 45’, 16mm.{/small}{br}{br}« In the Scratch Orchestra we had a piece called “Houdini Rite” where you’re all tied up with rope. For example, you could do Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with John Tilbury at the piano with his hands tied behind his back. » (actually, John Tilbury plays often the first movement of Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No.1 along this performance) {small}— ([Keith Rowe, interview by Josh Ronsen, April 22, 2007\|http://ronsen.org/monkminkpinkpunk/12/rowe.html]){/small}\| \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t [https://jeromejoy.org/files/articles/cardew/cardew5b.jpg]\|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t [https://jeromejoy.org/files/articles/cardew/cardew5d.jpg]\| \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t [https://jeromejoy.org/files/articles/cardew/cardew5c.jpg\|https://jeromejoy.org/files/articles/cardew/cardew5c_b.jpg]\|t \|t \|t \|t \|t \|t [https://jeromejoy.org/files/articles/cardew/cardew5e.jpg]\| {br}{br} {br}{br} {br}{br}---- {html} <hr nosize><hr style="height: 6px; margin: -0.5em 0; padding: 0; color: grey; background-color: grey; border: 0;"><br> {/html} !!! Scratch Orchestra, 1971 ---- {br}{br}---- [https://jeromejoy.org/files/articles/cardew/cardew13.jpg\|https://jeromejoy.org/files/articles/cardew/cardew13b.jpg.zip]{br} Scratch Orchestra circa 1971{br}Appearing in the photo are: Peter Ellison, Hugh Shrapnell, Bryn Harris, Stefan Szczelkun, Judith Euren, Keith Rowe, Chris May, Birgit Burkhardt, Micheal Chant, etc. (photo : Victor Schonfield). {br}{br} [https://jeromejoy.org/files/articles/cardew/cardew8.jpg\|https://jeromejoy.org/files/articles/cardew/cardew8b.jpg.zip]]{br} Alec Hill, Cornelius Cardew - Near Prudhoe, North East England, 1971. {br}{br} [https://jeromejoy.org/files/articles/cardew/cardew9.jpg]{br} Scratch Orchestra Van At Durham Castle 1971. {br}{br} [https://jeromejoy.org/files/articles/cardew/cardew10.jpg\|https://jeromejoy.org/files/articles/cardew/cardew10b.jpg]{br} Scratch Orchestra poster 1971. {br}{br}---- {br}{br} {br}{br}---- {html} <hr nosize><hr style="height: 6px; margin: -0.5em 0; padding: 0; color: grey; background-color: grey; border: 0;"><br> {/html} !!! Scratch Orchestra, Germany, 1972 ---- {br}{br}---- [https://jeromejoy.org/files/articles/cardew/cardew14.jpg]{br} Scratch Orchestra in Germany 1972.{br}Camping at Kloster Schäftlarn. {br}{br} [https://jeromejoy.org/files/articles/cardew/cardew15.jpg]{br} Scratch Orchestra in Germany 1972.{br}Catherine Williams and Carole Finer. {br}{br} [https://jeromejoy.org/files/articles/cardew/cardew16.jpg]{br} Scratch Orchestra in Germany 1972.{br}Cornelius Cardew, Jasper Tilbury, Penny Jordan and Carole Finer. {br}{br} [https://jeromejoy.org/files/articles/cardew/cardew17.jpg]{br} Scratch Orchestra in Germany 1972.{br}Dave Russell, Dave Smith, Frank Abbott, Cornelius Cardew, Hugh Shrapnel and Barbara Pearce - at Kloster Schäftlarn. {br}{br} [https://jeromejoy.org/files/articles/cardew/cardew18.jpg]{br} Scratch Orchestra in Germany 1972.{br}Lisa Major (foreground), Peter O'Sullivan (lying). {br}{br} [https://jeromejoy.org/files/articles/cardew/cardew19.jpg]{br} Scratch Orchestra in Germany 1972.{br}Lisa Major and Peter O'Sullivan. {br}{br} [https://jeromejoy.org/files/articles/cardew/cardew20.jpg]{br} Scratch Orchestra in Germany 1972.{br}Penny Jordan, Bryn Harris and Hugh Shrapnel. {br}{br} [https://jeromejoy.org/files/articles/cardew/cardew21.jpg]{br} Scratch Orchestra in Germany 1972.{br}Penny Jordan, Tim Mitchell and Ian Ward. {br}{br} [https://jeromejoy.org/files/articles/cardew/cardew22.jpg]{br} Scratch Orchestra in Germany 1972.{br}Bryn Harris (legs), Hugh Shrapnel, Waheed Pall, Dave Smith, Jenny Robbins, Alec Hill, Cornelius Cardew, John Tilbury, Carole Finer, Jasper Tilbury. {br}{br} [https://jeromejoy.org/files/articles/cardew/cardew23.jpg]{br} Scratch Orchestra in Germany 1972.{br}Cornelius Cardew, Alec Hill, John Tilbury, Carole Finer, Jasper Tilbury, child?, Tim Mitchell, Barbara Pearce?. {br}{br} [https://jeromejoy.org/files/articles/cardew/cardew24.jpg]{br} Scratch Orchestra in Germany 1972. {br}{br} [https://jeromejoy.org/files/articles/cardew/cardew25.jpg]{br} Scratch Orchestra in Germany 1972.{br}Stella Cardew and Penny Jordan. {br}{br} [https://jeromejoy.org/files/articles/cardew/cardew26.jpg]{br} Scratch Orchestra in Germany 1972.{br}Tim Mitchell and Stella Cardew with Sweet FA scenery. {br}{br}---- {br}{br} {br}{br} ---- ---- !!! 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