Gentle Fire - An Early Approach to Live Electronic Music (Hugh Davies)

8/6/2019 Gentle Fire - An Early Approach to Live Electronic Music (Hugh Davies)

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Gentle Fire: An Early Approach to Live Electronic MusicAuthor(s): Hugh DaviesSource: Leonardo Music Journal, Vol. 11, Not Necessarily "English Music": Britain's SecondGolden Age (2001), pp. 53-60Published by: The MIT PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1513428 .Accessed: 11/07/2011 14:36

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G e n t l e F i r e : A n E a r l y Approacht o L i v e Electronic M u s i c

HughDaviesABSTRACT

The authorescribeshecir-cumstancesf the ormationnddevelopmentf the ive lectronicmusicroupGentle ire,ndis-cussing spects ffectinglec-trnir, milcir,r n nnvornl nrl 'th,oErom the mid-1960s, several initially unrelateddevelopments brought into being small groups of young mu-sical performers who were substantially more happy-go-luckyand self-reliant than previous generations. They traveledaround to play "gigs" ike hippies, in secondhand vans filledwith instruments and sound equipment, often for little or nomoney. To many people this immediately conjures up themore adventurous rock music that developed in the heydayof the Beatles and U.S. West Coast rock groups, but it was alsoparalleled in areas of contemporary composed music.The contributing developments included more affordableand transportable sound equipment of all kinds, partlydue tothe increasing availabilityof transistorized electronic devicessuch as small mixers and power amplifiers. By the end of the1960s, it had become possible to build simple circuits frommagazines without any detailed knowledge of electronics,and thus some musicians who lacked such expertise foundthemselves able unassisted to adapt existing circuits and de-vise other simple ones for use in personal electronic musicstudios and especially in live electronic music.Above all, however, it was the freer musical attitudes of thatdecade that motivated such developments. At the end of the1950s composers had begun to explore indeterminate andmobile forms, unspecified instrumentation and graphic nota-tion in worksthat in this article I will describe as "experimen-tal music" (justas I have retained other terminology from thetime, such as "electronic music"). These elements were emi-nently suited to live electronic music, for which no standardmethod has been devised to notate the operation of oscilla-tors, filters and other devices; it also requires greater flexibil-ity from the performers to accommodate imprecisions thatmay arise at any stage of the basic chain of sound production,modification and amplification.Gentle Fire was one such group. It was founded in 1968and gave its last concert in 1975. As one of its members, Ihave reconstructed much of what we experienced some 30years ago, aided by feedback from other members of thegroup.

BRITISHELECTRONICMUSICIN THE 1960SElectronic music in Britain had an unusual early history. MyInternationalElectronicMusicCatalog, ompiled in the winter of1966-1967, showed that until then there had been a very lowproportion of concert works in Britain in relation to its posi-tion as the fourth most prolific producer worldwide; in other

words, nearly all electronic music i gi e idIUlLIearticularo theensemble. eproduction was background or stressesGentle ire's istinctiveapplied music for radio, televi- approachesowardollaborationsion, theater and film, either and echnology,ivingarticularfrom the BBC's Radiophonic attentiono its uniqueroupom-positions. ollaborationsith on-Workshop or from private studios temporariesrealsodiscussed.such as those of Tristram Cary Finally,heauthorddressesheand Daphne Oram [1]. factorseadingo thedissolutionThe only major composer to ofthegroup.have worked more extensively inthe medium was RobertoGerhard, but regrettably he alsoproduced very little tape music for concerts, apart from theSymphony o. 3 (Collages)or orchestra and tape (1960). Noneof the younger generation of avant-garde composers, eithermembers of the "Manchester School" of Peter MaxwellDavies, Harrison Birtwistleand Alexander Goehr or the Lon-don-trained Richard Rodney Bennett and Cornelius Cardew,had produced any serious contribution to the medium up tothen, and, with minor exceptions, only Birtwistlewas to do sosubsequently. Live electronic music was nonexistent.This situation changed radically after 1968, when the firstactive university and college studios were set up in London, atGoldsmiths' (now Goldsmiths) College and the Royal Collegeof Music and at York University; the presence of a modularMoog synthesizer at Manchester University from 1967 did notlead to any significant creative or pedagogic results.Following Cardew's work with Stockhausen around 1960, Iwas the latter'sassistant for 2 years in the mid-1960s, which in-cluded participation in performances of his first live electroniccompositions (Mixturand Mikrophonieand II) as a member ofhis newlyformed live electronic group. This was Stockhausen'sfirst contact with the youngest generation of British compos-ers, consolidated soon afterwardsby Tim Souster and RogerSmalley (the co-founders in 1969 of the Cambridge-based liveelectronic group Intermodulation). Among other things thiscontact led to the participation in 1971 of all the members ofGentle Fire and Intermodulation in the earliest performancesof Sternklang, f three members of Gentle Fire in AlphabeturLiege(1972) and of Michael Robinson from Gentle Fire andtwo members of Intermodulation as guests with the LondonSinfonietta in 1973 on a Stockhausen tour in Stopand theworld premiere of Ylem.Hugh Davies (composer, performer), 25 Albert Road, London, N4 3RR, U.K. E-mail:.

LEONARDO MUSICJOURNAL, Vol. 11, pp. 53-60, 2001 532001 ISAST


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The influence of Stockhausen's ap-proach to live electronics, however, in-volving his typically detailed composi-tional control over what was played andoperated, was, in my own work and thatof Gentle Fire, counterbalanced by thatof John Cage and David Tudor, who fea-tured greater freedoms and more diversecombinations of sound sources and oftenof independent loudspeaker channels.This was exemplified in a remarkableconcert they gave in London, togetherwith Gordon Mumma, in November 1966during a visit by the Merce CunninghamDance Company, which for many yearswas talked about as a major landmark byall who were in the audience.

HOW GENTLE FIRE CAMEINTO EXISTENCEAfter completing my work withStockhausen, followed by the compila-tion of my International ElectronicMusicCatalog n Paris and the United States, Ireturned to Britain in the summer of1967, moving to London in the early au-tumn. I was invited to set up a small elec-tronic music studio at Goldsmiths' Col-lege, then part of London University,and began giving evening classes therefor adults in January 1968. RichardOrton, whom I had met 2 yearsbefore atCambridge University and had re-mained in contact with, had recentlybeen appointed lecturer in the musicdepartment at York University (whichwas about to move into a purpose-builtcomplex and become the most adven-turous music department in Britain overthe next few years) and installed a simi-lar studio there a couple of monthslater. In the summer of 1968 he and Iformed a live electronic duo, which gavesome 10 concerts in the course of a year(including the British premiere ofCage's ElectronicMusicfor Piano), as wellas performing live electronics in onework by each of us and in the Britishpremiere of Stockhausen's MikrophonieII; all of these involved additional per-formers, using a combination of ourown equipment and a few items tempo-rarilyborrowed from our respective stu-dios. We were both self-taught on thetechnical side, learning as we wentalong; in my own evening classes I wasfrequently aware that in some areas Iwas only a couple of weeks more ad-vanced than some of my students. TheYorkUniversity studio was to get its firstpermanent technician within the next 2years, but at Goldsmiths' College thisdid not happen until a decade later, so I

was obliged to become more proficientwith the fairly basic studio equipment,especially in its maintenance.

Early in 1968 Orton began to holdSaturday morning experimental musicsessions in York for any music studentswho were interested; all future mem-bers of the group (see section below),apart from myself, took a prominentpart in these. That summer, the futuremembers of Gentle Fire figured promi-nently in a series of four concerts of ex-perimental music at York University [2]and one at Sheffield University. There-after, the York-based group membersconsulted the I Chingon the best way toextend their previous activities:hexagram No. 37, the Family, cameup-the two trigrams of which are Sunand Li, meaning Gentle Wind andClinging Fire respectively-indicatingclearly to the group that they shouldcontinue these activities and supplyingthe name Gentle Fire.

Following the first couple of perfor-mances in Yorkand nearby Hull, as a re-sult of my existing duo connection withOrton and my slightly greater experi-ence with live electronics, I was added tothe group in November 1968; I had al-ready worked with all the other mem-bers in other contexts, having includedworks by Orton and Richard Bernas in aconcert series I was organizing in Lon-don, and having performed a group im-provisation in an open-air concert inLondon with three of the York studentsin the summer of 1968. The Orton/Davies live electronic duo overlappedwith the group for another half year, ful-filling lower-budget invitations. Origi-nally The Gentle Fire, the group's namewas later altered to Gentle Fire.At around that time, I analyzed liveelectronic music as the simultaneouslive electronic transformation of soundswhose sources fall into one or more offour categories [3], which are heresomewhat expanded: sounds played onconventional instruments (or quasi-con-ventional invented instruments); onfound or adapted objects (or equivalentnoise-making invented instruments); onelectronic oscillators or instruments(which, like synthesizers, may incorpo-rate their own modification devices);and sounds replayed from earlier re-cordings (which more recently wouldinclude samplers). Stockhausen hadconcentrated mainly on the first cat-egory; Cage, Tudor and Mumma on thethree others; between us Orton and I,individually and in the duo, explored allfour, as did Gentle Fire.

GROUP MEMBERS ANDINSTRUMENTATIONThe following were the members ofGentle Fire during its 1968-1975 exist-ence:* Richard Bernas: piano, percussion

(including tabla), voice* Hugh Davies: invented instruments,live electronics, clarinet (khene,sheng[Oriental mouth organs])* Patrick Harrex: violin, percussion* Graham Hearn: piano, recorder,VCS-3synthesizer, percussion* StuartJones: trumpet, cello (electricguitar)* Richard Orton: tenor voice, live elec-tronics

* Michael Robinson: cello, piano.One of the original members, Harrex,decided early in 1970 that his intendedcareer would conflict with the need tobe flexibly available for group rehearsalsand concerts; he was replaced byRobinson, who had also participated inthe 1968 Saturday morning sessions inYork. A year later Orton also left, prima-rily because of similar difficulties withhis teaching commitments. After Ortonleft we decided to continue as a quintetrather than a sextet, since (apart fromGroup Composition ) there was nothingin our current or potential repertoirefor which the additional person was re-quired. Hearn occasionally was not avail-able for a concert, requiring us to selecta program for four performers. We alsobegan to shift the focus of the groupawayfrom York,as Bernas and Robinsonhad already moved to London.

Although all of us are listed as playingmore than one instrument, our apparentabilities as multi-instrumentalists arepartly misleading; with the exception ofJones, only the first-named instrument inthe list above was a primary one that weoccasionally played outside the group,usually in more conventional music. Inaddition to the instruments listed above,all or most of us occasionally also playedpiano and/or other keyboards, VCS3(Putney) synthesizers, conventional orfound percussion, invented instrumentsand, where required, we also spoke orsang, in addition to operating electronicequipment. In certain pieces, in whichan understanding of the composer's styleand intentions were of crucial impor-tance, and little or no virtuosity was re-quired (primarily in works with unspeci-fied instrumentation), other instrumentswere used: for example, Hearn andOrton played violins and Bernas theviola in Earle Brown's FourSystemsJones

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played a conveniently available doublebass instead of cello on an early record-ing we made of this work, forming amore conventional string quintet). Occa-sionally in rehearsal, when we were get-ting stale and playing too much unneces-sarily,we would even swapinstruments inorder to avoid cliches (e.g. I once playedone of the cellos).

COLLABORATIONSThe group worked with Stockhausen onmany occasions. Although we knewCage, Tudor and Mumma, having metup with them in at least three citieswhen we and they were touring Europein the summer of 1972, we only per-formed with them once, in ChristianWolff's Burdocks, together with theMerce Cunningham Dance Company,on one night that autumn at the Sadler'sWells Theatre (now the Coliseum) inLondon. We also collaborated severaltimes with ErhardGrosskopf (who wroteone work for us and featured us in theworld premieres of two others) andWolff and, early on, once with thepainter and composer Tom Phillips. In1974 Grosskopf and Wolff (who at thetime was also living in West Berlin) per-formed in their own works with us atshort notice when Hearn was not avail-able for a concert at a festival in Metz;Wolff also volunteered to take part inour performance of Stockhausen'sSpektren;we happily accepted. FredericRzewskiconsidered composing an "elec-tronic symphony" for us, and EarleBrown was also interested in writing forthe group. Although Alvin Lucier al-lowed us to give the premiere of hisscore GentleFire[4], it wasnot composedspecially for us (because it required so-phisticated sound processing equipmentfor what would now be called sonicmorphing, it was not really suited to thegroup, unlike his Chambers,which weperformed several times). Lucier in-tended the title of GentleFireto refer tothe alchemical meaning (i.e. the slowheating of metals for their transmuta-tion) and was unaware of our group'sorigin in the I Ching.Another work in our repertoire thatalso referred to the group's name wasStockhausen's 1968 verbal score Setz dieSegelzurSonne(Set the Sails towards theSun). In the version that I originallymade of several of the texts from Aus densiebenTagen or British performances, Itranslated the last two lines "undderganzeKlang zu Gold / zu reinem, ruhigleuchtendem euerwird'as "and the whole

sound becomes gold / becomes pure,calmly burning fire";but when my effortswere amalgamated for the publishedscore with translations by two Americancomposers living in Cologne, the finalversion ended up as "and the wholesound turns to gold / to pure, gentlyshimmering fire" [5]. I don't rememberwho originally suggested this change,perhaps someone from the group, but,when Stockhausen very thoroughlychecked the English translation, he ac-cepted it as an interesting coincidence.Both Gentle Fire and Intermod-ulation were recommended by Stock-hausen on several occasions when a fes-tival needed other performers for worksby him; between 1971 and 1975, bothgroups performed in Sternklangn WestBerlin, Munich (two performances),Shiraz, La Rochelle, Paris (twice) andmade the commercial recording. Fortwo further performances in Bonn in1980, Gentle Fire had its only reunion,in which Orton returned as a guest. Onsome of these occasions we also had theopportunity to include works by our-selves or by other composers, or weresubsequently invited back for this pur-pose. Although Gentle Fire's interestsand sound world were very differentfrom Stockhausen's own (more so thanthose of Intermodulation), we workedhard in realizing his music; even in hisintuitive text scores from Aus den siebenTagenand Fur kommendeZeiten,each ofour performances was clearly recogniz-able as based on the score in question.One of the most memorable occasionswas in 1972, when we performedIntensitdt in the presence of the com-poser in a concert during theRencontres Internationales d'ArtContemporain at La Rochelle; unlikemost interpretations of these intuitivescores by us and by other groups, in-stead of the often-occurring situation ofone musician continuing what he wasplaying for some time after everyoneelse had finished, the music built to aclimax and ended quickly and cleanly;regrettably, no recording was made.The widely recognized similarities be-tween Gentle Fire and Intermodulationas live electronic composer-performergroups with a strong Stockhausen con-nection outweighed the differences thatwe ourselves saw. The careers of bothgroups were in many ways parallel, ascan be seen by comparing the presentarticle with a retrospective onIntermodulation published in 1977 bySouster [6]. In 1986 Gentle Fire andIntermodulation were singled out by

Paul Griffiths [7] as the two (European)live electronic groups that-unlikeAMMand Musica Elettronica Viva-hadspecialized in composed music. Inter-modulation almost alwaysappeared witha VCS3 for each of the four group mem-bers, often for the transformation of thesound of each player's instrument,whereas in Gentle Fire there was usuallyonly one, played by Hearn as an instru-ment in its own right. The virtuosic ele-ment that was a feature of Inter-modulation as performers was much lessprominent with Gentle Fire, as reflectedin the nature of each group's chosenrepertoire and specially composedpieces. West Germany was the most fre-quent destination for both groups, onlypartly through the Stockhausen connec-tion; because of its federal structure,nine radio stations across the countryhad substantial funds for supportingcontemporary music, and one could besure of interest from producers in atleast a couple of these-Gentle Fire andIntermodulation were each invited bythe same four radio stations, either to-gether or independently.

During a festival at London's RoyalCourt theater in 1970, Gentle Fire puton the first of three performances ofStockhausen's rarely staged theaterpiece Obenund Unten, in which the twoadult performers were MarianneFaithfull and Ian Hogg, and some mem-bers of the group worked with a groupof actors from the same theater for a fewdays in 1971.Our contacts with artists from othermedia occasionally found us appearingat the same event as, for example, soundpoets, and included performances at thefestivals organized by the sound poetHenri Chopin at his home in Essex. In1970 we commissioned a pentagonalgraphic score from the artist JohnFurnival, Ode (A Two-GuineaOdefor theGentleFire, Including, for GoodMeasure,TheBallad ofFearlessFred),for which wepaid the modest sum of two guineas (?2-2s in pre-decimal currency). As a foot-note, the program for one of thegroup's first major concerts in Londonwas designed and printed by Brian Eno.The summer of 1972 was a peak periodfor British experimental music, not onlyfor Gentle Fire, which made four tripsabroad in 5 months, to Cologne andEssen, Zfirich and West Berlin, Munichand Shiraz (in pre-Khomeini Iran) andLiege. With the exception of a single con-cert in Essen, in each city we performedin two or three concerts and/or partici-pated in workshops, rehearsals with other

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musicians or recordings. All the otherBritish groups were also very busy, espe-cially performing around Europe. Thislevel of activity in 1972 has never beenmatched since. In the following year thefirst oil crisis ended that optimism, andreduced the foreign invitations to GentleFire (we were still optimistic for the nextyear or so, with our LP recording ofAmerican works appearing in 1974; weeven started to plan a possible trip to Aus-tralia and the Far East); but by 1975 thechanged situation was certainly one ofthe reasons for the group's demise in thatyear. The last concert with a typicalGentle Fire program took place in De-cember 1974, and in the summer of 1975we participated in two performances ofSternklang nd the LP recording of it inParis, followed by a group improvisationat a college and the performances of twopieces by Robinson in a small art galleryin London, in both cases with one mem-ber of the group missing.UNUSUAL PERFORMANCESAND OTHER PROJECTSAlthough we specialized in perfor-mances of concert works, Gentle Fireenjoyed the challenge of performing inunusual spaces. In addition to theaters,art galleries and museums (one wasjusta building site) and a church, we per-formed on several occasions in parksand streets. At the Shiraz Festival in1972, we appeared at a roundabout onthe outskirts of the city one morning at8 A.M.and played one of Stockhausen'sverbal scores on acoustic instruments;we were soon surrounded by an in-trigued audience of passersby-until thesecurity police arrived to break up theconcert and remove us and our instru-ments from the scene. In 1971, at thevery first open-air rock festival inGlastonbury, we gave the premiere ofGroupCompositionV (Glastonbury air)atdawn as the last event of a night's music,on a stage set high up in the side of a sil-ver-clad pyramid and, together withIntermodulation, the Scratch Orchestraand other Britishgroups, participated ina multi-room "Wandelkonzert" at theGoethe Institute in London.

Among the workshops we gave as agroup, we held seminars and workshopsand performed concerts at theDartington Summer School in 1971 (for1 week) and 1972 (for a fortnight), andin 1972 also contributed to a course forcomposition students in Ziirich, whichincluded adding live performances in aconcert to two tapes that the students

had created. In these courses we did notalwaysconcentrate on our personal rep-ertoire or indeed on live electronic tech-niques; in workshops, especially formembers of the public, we often usedRobert Ashley's entirely vocal She WasaVisitor r Hearn's AmbulatoryMusic.The only scores published under thename of the group were three that wereprinted in 1973 in an issue of Source:Musicof theAvant Garde, dited by AlvinLucier. As far as I remember there wassome editorial confusion as a result ofpapers being mixed up after a car acci-dent, which meant that two members ofGentle Fire were not represented, andthat only one of the three scores thatwere printed, my own, was part of ourrepertoire! [8]We had comparably mixed fortuneswith LP recordings (see Discography).Our first studio recording, featuringBrown's FourSystems,Toshi Ichiyanagi'sAppearance, tockhausen's TreffpunktndWolff's ForJill, was never released. Thiswas followed by a recording session atEMI'sprestigious Abbey Road studios ofmusic by Brown, Cage and Wolff(supplemented in Loughborough byHearn's performance of three of Cage'spieces for solo carillon on one of theonly such instruments in Britain) whichwas released in 1974, but only in WestGermany (on Electrola) and Japan (onToshiba). Together with Intermodula-tion we were among the 21 musicianswho recorded Stockhausen's double LPof Sternklang,reissued in 1992 as a CDon his own label. Otherwise, only twoshort pieces came out on 17-cm (7")discs: Orton's concertmusic 5 (accompa-nying a book in an educational series)and Furnival's Ode(included in a retro-spective exhibition catalog [9]). Sincethen, a brief excerpt from GroupCompo-sitionIVappeared in the 1991 "LiveElec-tronics" issue of ContemporaryMusic Re-view,and one from GroupCompositionVIis included on the CD accompanyingthis issue of LMJ.(See Discography forrecording details.) We are currently innegotiation with two small labels overthe possibility of issuing a CD of record-ings from our archive; some broadcastrecordings probably still survive in thearchives of radio stations.SPECIAL INSTRUMENTS ANDELECTRONIC EQUIPMENTWe normally took four loudspeakerswith us and set up a quadraphonicsound system. It is alwaysmore satisfac-tory to use one's own equipment. Occa-

sionally we needed to supplement it byhiring one or more VCS3 synthesizers,with which we were all already familiar.On one occasion, when at short noticewe had to fly to a festival in France, wetook our own amplifiers, but in spite ofinforming the organizer in advance ofthe specifications we needed, the loud-speakers that were supplied for usproved to be no more than adequate.There are also advantages in usinghomemade equipment, which can al-most alwaysbe repaired quite quickly.We played a number of "homemade"invented instruments. I specialized indoing so, in around 20 pieces, and fea-tured them in two ensemble works of myown. Robinson's gHong, a "gong-tree"that formed the central part of GroupCompositionsII and T, is described be-low in connection with those pieces.

Jones constructed a type of tabletopelectric sitar, which incorporated a realsitar bridge and strings.The loudspeakers at York Universitywere specially assembled locally to a de-sign by the manufacturer of the speakerunits, Tannoy, based on the MonitorGold model. In order to fund thisproject, a larger quantity was assembledthan the university needed; I bought aset of four, which were subsequentlyused in most of Gentle Fire's concerts.Like most other live electronic groups ofthe time, we could not afford a sophisti-cated studio mixer, but used severalUher mixers (designed primarilyfor op-eration with the company's portablereel-to-reel tape recorders), which alsofunction well as contact microphonepreamplifiers; careful adjustment of dif-ferent volume controls in the amplifica-tion chain reduces noise to a level unno-ticeable by an audience. I continue touse them in all performances on my in-vented instruments.

In 1972 I built a special stereo pream-plifier box for each member of thegroup, designed originally for use inSternklang,ncorporating the plug-in ste-reo input preamplifier circuit board forthe Revox A77 tape recorder. While wewere working in Zurich for 4 days on acourse for music students, we took theopportunity to drive out to Revox's headoffice nearby and bought the boards di-rectly from the company.My transformation equipment used inthe group included simple homemadeand adapted pedals for ring-modulationand distortion, as well as a two-rangecommercial wa-wa (filter) pedal and achoice of bandpass filters, primarily aKrohn-Hite model with separate low- and

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high-pass control knobs, which could beoperated in a manuallyjerkymanner thatapproximated the switched steps of theunusual filters used in Stockhausen's liveelectronic group. Our realization ofBrown's early graphic score FourSystemsfeatured the wa-wapedal and a modifiedtelephone dial, which "gated" soundsrouted through twoof its terminalswhen,after "windingit up," I slowlylet the dialreturn to its resting position by maintain-ing myindex finger in it. Five (later four)bowed strings playing a slowly changingsustained background chord were ampli-fied and mixed down to a single channel,which wasfed through the pedal and tele-phone dial. This enabled me to interpretthe sequence of horizontal rectanglesthat make up the score with appropriatelyfiltered bands extracted from the spec-trum of the complete string sound.

My homemade passive ring-modula-tor contained only the basic compo-nents, as given in various publicationsand described in detail in my 1976 ar-ticle "A Simple Ring-Modulator" [10]:two center-tapped transformers and a"bridge"of four diodes. The main prob-lem with all ring-modulators is the leak-age of the carrier input, which I discov-ered was on the earth (ground)connection, and thus unavoidable with-out additional circuitry.However, it doesnot occur when both inputs are fromsources that are not oscillators, such asmicrophones and prerecorded tapes.When an oscillator was essential, wemanaged to disguise the leakage asmuch as possible, in whatever way wasappropriate for the piece in question. Inthis basic form of ring-modulator thetwo inputs are not electrically identical,since one of them is connected directlyto the center taps of the two transform-ers; experimentation was necessary todiscover the most appropriate input foran oscillator, one of which would nor-mallybe better for high frequencies andthe other for low ones. At one point Itested one of my ring-modulators incomparison with the ring-modulator ina VCS3, and found that the damping re-quired to reduce or eliminate leakagealso affected the output sound, makingit blander. The rougher quality pro-duced by my own ring-modulator could,if desired, be smoothed by passing itthrough a filter, but the reverse was im-possible with the blander sound pro-duced by the one in the VCS3. We allhad a love/hate relationship with theVCS3synthesizer. It was primarily playedby Graham Hearn in several works; oth-erwise, unlike some other groups (such

as Intermodulation), we possessed thealternative electronic resources that bet-ter matched our musical approach, fa-voring timbre over pitch.

Although most of the instrumentalplayers in Sternklang-apart from Bernasas the central percussionist-used aVCS3 (or the suitcase Synthi A/AKS ver-sion) to process their sounds, this wasmainly necessary because their low-passfilters could be set to a high resonance,so that, controlled by a pedal, they oscil-lated as a sine wave at the cutoff fre-quency, to match the whistle-like over-tones produced by the singers (as firstintroduced in Stockhausen's Stimmung).After the first performance in 1971, wecommissioned a friend of mine to de-sign and construct a set of similarfilters,so that Jones, Robinson and I did notneed to borrow or hire a synthesizer.

Jones's realization of Stockhausen'sSpiral on the trumpet in 1971 empha-sized how we became increasingly ableto mimic or replace many types of liveelectronic treatment with our own typeof extended performance techniques-not so much in a virtuosic direction (asexemplified subsequently by woodwindmultiphonics), but by simpler methodssuch as more subtle timbre control orJones blowing his trumpet into a bucketcontaining water for a bubbling modula-tion effect; air or contact microphoneswere usually necessary, but it would havebeen possible to dispense with them in asmall room.

What we managed to achieve withmostly homemade devices for live elec-tronic transformation by around 1970was mirrored 15 years later by the firstattempts at using high-end digital equip-ment like the DMX-1000. All the trans-formation techniques that I heard in acouple of live electronic works in themid-1980s by young composers (whowere no doubt unaware of this) couldhave been produced with our simpleequipment.REPERTOIREOver the 7 years of the group's existencewe gave 245 performances of 100 worksby 28 composers; 41 of these wereGentle Fire's collective compositionsand pieces by members of the group.Thirty-twoperformances were recordedfor radio and seven for television broad-casts (several works were recorded butnever performed live). Gentle Fire's firstperformances as a group were primarilygroup improvisations, but from 1969 weconcentrated mainly on compositions by

a range of living composers, from solosto quintets (originally sextets), that of-fered considerable freedom to the per-formers, often notated verbally and oc-casionally graphically, and frequentlywithout precise instrumentation; we sub-sequently only programmed an improvi-sation about once every 2 years. Al-though we specialized in liveelectronics, some pieces that we per-formed were entirely acoustic, includingworks by Ashley, Cage, Cardew,Feldman, Wolff and Hearn. Around halfof the works in our repertoire are listedin Simon Emmerson's brief survey,"LiveElectronic Music in Britain" [11], whichnaturally excludes the acoustic pieces.We played more worksby Stockhausenthan by any other composer, includingnine pieces from his two sets of intuitiveverbal scores and four works in which in-dividual realizations with improvisationalelements needed to be made. Two(Kurzwellen and Spiral) are based onshortwave radio sounds, and the othertwo (Sternklang nd Alphabetur Liege) n-volve larger groups of performers. In ad-dition to our Group Compositionsandnearly all of the group members' indi-vidual works in our repertoire, we gavethe world premieres of Stockhausen'sverbal scores Anndherung (Approxima-tion, later retitled UbereinstimmungUna-nimity]) in 1970 and Spektren Spectra)in 1972, and participated in the worldpremieres of Sternklang(1971) and Al-phabet fur Liege (1972), as well asGrosskopfs Sun (1972) and Looping spe-ciallywrittenfor us, 1973), Furnival'sOde(the only work we commissioned, 1971),Tom Phillips' graphic score Op. X No. 6(together with the composer, 1968) andLucier's Gentle Fire (1972). Among adozen Britishpremieres were Cage's Car-tridgeMusic, Mauricio Kagel's TransicionII, Stockhausen's Kurzwellen,ObenundUnten,RichtigeDauern nd SetzdieSegel urSonneand Wolffs Edges nd ForJill,as wellas works by Ashley, David Behrman andIchiyanagi. The compositions we per-formed most frequently were CartridgeMusic, Brown's FourSystems,Grosskopf'sLooping,Stockhausen's Intensitdt,Spektren,Spiral, Sternklang, Treffpunkt andVerbindung,Wolff'sBurdocks, dgesand ForJill, our GroupCompositionsIII-VI andsome of our own compositions.The composer whose work perhapsmost typifies the spirit of Gentle Fire isGraham Hearn. His scores imposed novirtuosic elements, created a uniquesound world, left considerable interpre-tive freedom and often required an al-most ritualistic approach to the perfor-



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ToLizGRAHAMEARN: RTMUSTBE FED 1972)PIANOANDINSTRUMENTSPIANO

I9; 1?'~~~~~~ i

(Withedal; otationnspace-time,verallempo low;quiet;egato)ACCOMPANIMENTWHATODO(CHANCEACHINE/DIE)

1. Single ote2. Chord/cluster3. Melodichrase4. Noise5. Mixedag6. Free eminiscence

DURATIONS(CHANCEACHINE/DIEI)

1.2.3.4.5.6.

Simultaneouslyithonepiano ound.Inbetween woconsecutivepiano ounds.Exact engthof pianophrase,beginningo end.Somewhatonger hanpianophrase.Longerhanone sound,shorter hanwholephrase.Simultaneouslyith notherlayer'soundexcl.pianist).1. Graham Hearn, Art Must Be Fed, score of a composition for Gentle Fire, 1972. Hearn's compositions typified the spirit of Gentle(? Graham Hearn)

(in, for example, Art Must beFed)(Fig. 1).GROUP COMPOSITIONS

SPECIALLYCOMPOSED WORKS

Simon Emmerson has pointed out[12], Gentle Fire was "a welcome excep-tion" in pioneering group compositions,warranta more detailed discussion.from a few compositions that in-

performers, group com-ositions were the most substantial worksin our repertoire, and together form themost representative encapsulation of the

group's music. We explored three differ-ent approaches: detailed live electronictreatments, specially created instrumentsand a circularstructure n which each per-son composed the part for the next per-son in the cycle. In comparison, the col-laborative work of other live electronicgroups in that period largely focused onother aspects. Stockhausen's group onlyperformed his music; the Sonic ArtsUnion and Composers Inside Electronicsconcentrated on performing composi-tions by their individual members; Cage,

Tudor and Mumma (later replaced byTakehisa Kosugi) performed their ownworks as well as others specially commis-sioned by the Merce Cunningham DanceCompany.Intermodulation's three collec-tive compositions were much less signifi-cant for that group. AMM, and increas-ingly Musica Elettronica Viva, onlyperformed group improvisations.The Ca-nadian Electronic Ensemble (founded in1971) created group compositions inwhich each member composed a separatesection, while from 1978 in the U.S. worksby the members of the League of Auto-matic Music Composers (the forerunnerof The Hub) utilized networked micro-computers.In an introduction to the GroupCompo-sitionsthat Robinson wrote for a broad-cast by the Westdeutscher Rundfunk inCologne in 1973, he identified the simi-larities between pairs of these works, asdiscussed below, and analyzed our musi-cal motivations: "the idea of making situ-ations which select sound from the en-tire possible range without employingconscious decision before or during theperformance is one which now seems tobe established with us" [13]. Such an ap-

proach can only be successful when thesituation is well matched to the soundsources and allows them to shape anddefine the music.

GroupComposition (1970) was scoredfor tenor voice, cello, two VCS3 synthe-sizers and other live electronics. TheVCS3s were used for detailed live elec-tronic treatments, and the "patches"forthese were carefully worked out andwritten down. Comparable live elec-tronic treatments of a freer nature werefeatured in GroupCompositionVI.

GroupCompositionI (1971) was origi-nally a sextet that included RichardOrton; after he left the group we de-cided to revise it as a quintet under thetitle GroupCompositionV (1972), for twocellos, piano (interior), electronic organand live electronics. In practice this wasa fairly simple alteration, as in both ver-sions each person in the group com-posed a part for the next person in apredetermined circle; for the revisionone of the original six layerswas omittedand only Hearn was affected: he tookover the part previously played byOrton. The individual parts were com-posed as separate layers, without any of

58 Davies, Gentle Fire

I


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ProcedurePianistRepeathephrasewithouthangeor heentireength f theperformance.fyouareremindedfotherpieces,moods, tylesetc.,youmaymakehememoryudibleyhumming,histling,ingingtc.forshortperiodscf.freereminiscence).hephrasemaybetransposedfractionrom neperformanceoanother.AccompanimentUse wodice o decidewhat oudo foraneventandwhen oudo it. Performventswhen ou eelready-takeyourime-use silence.Dynamicsreequaloor softerhanpianoevel; ccasionallyhepianoanbe drowned. ou anrelatewhat ouplayothesounds f thepianistndotherplayersfyouwish.Free eminiscencesresnatchesofmusicamiliaroyou-theymaybesung,played, ummedrwhistled.If he sum ofthetwonumbers btainedrom he dice is odd,makea change nthe soundwithrespect oanyparameterexcl.duration). therwise lay he eventsstraight. f he two numbers btained reidentical,hat otalnumber f succeedingeventsis to be performed adly.Furtherdentical umbersobtainedeforeucha seriesofeventsscompleted aybeignoredr added o thepreviousumber(s).Youmustdecidewhat onstitutes,elativeoyour wn apabilities,badly erformedvent.Exaggerationmaybe required. nsure hat here s sufficient istinctionetween hese and heotherevents.

us knowing what the other layers wouldconsist of, but taking them into consid-eration. Two parts required tape loops;one of these, created by Robinson, wasmore than 10 seconds in duration. Itcontained the sounds of a clock tickingand its alarm sounding, and ring-modu-lated whatever Jones played. Hearn'spart for me consisted of five large dice-like wooden pentagons, five faces ofwhich contained note values or rests,plus a tape loop containing five differ-ently filtered telephone rings that fromtime to time I was to make briefly au-dible (one pentagon and one telephonering was assigned to each of the players;this created a slowly evolving rhythmiccycle of electronic transformations (pri-marily filtering and ring-modulation) ofwhat was played by the musicians. Mypart for Robinson was a single page onwhich the player followed a sequence ofinstructions in the border surrounding agraphic score, part of which was derivedfrom Furnival's Odegraphic.Two further Group Compositions wereinterrelated: GroupCompositionII (1971)used only the quadraphonic gHong"gong-tree" nstrument as a sound source

(Fig. 2), while the more substantialGroupComposition V (GlastonburyFair) (1971)was given an additional dimensionthrough each performer adding one ortwo instruments of his choice. A woodenbase and central column supported crossbeams from which were suspended threevery large metal oven-like grills, eachabout 5 x 4 feet in size. The grills werespecially constructed to Robinson's speci-fications, and he designed and built theframework for them. On the fourth sidewe added a wooden crossbar from whichfour large springs were suspended. Oneach grill and on the crossbar wemounted at least two different contactmicrophones; for each side of the gHonga good qualitycontact microphone (suchas a stethoscope microphone or thetransducer from a vibration exciter) wascombined with a cheap microphone ormicrophone insert that had a poor fre-quency response, with only a middle orhigh frequency range. Simply by varyingthe levels on a mixer for each pair of mi-crophones we were able to obtain sub-stantial filtering effects.GroupCompositionVI(UnfixedParities)(1972) concentrated on an electronic

sound-processing system, as in GroupCompositionI, this time for modifyingspeech. (This homemade system is de-scribed in the CD Contributors' Notessection of this issue of LMJ.)Before the group came to an end wehad begun to plan GroupComposition II,which was to have been a meal, per-formed/eaten on the stage. Among theideas that offered live electronic possi-bilities were the insertion of two"probes" (connected to a voltage-con-trol input on a VCS3) into a cake, whichaltered a complex sound on the synthe-sizer as the size of the cake was reducedby successive slices and one probeneeded to be resited (originally carriedout by us in the interval of an afternoonrehearsal, using a large cheesecake); a"beer input" for other control voltages;and interconnections to be switchedwhenever a knife and fork touched. Asecond project for a future group com-position would have involved a live elec-tronic part operated entirely on the mix-ing desk in a recording studio.

Two further group compositions werecreated. We worked on River Concert(DartRiverEnvironment) s a project with



9/9

*.

i

ii

I

'

Fig. 2. Gentle Fire playing the gHong (Akademie der Kiinste, Berlin, 1972), here suspendedfrom a low ceiling rather than on its own stand; from left to right: Richard Bernas, GrahamHearn, Michael Robinson (back to camera), StuartJones, Hugh Davies. (Photo ? PetraGrosskopf)our students at the Dartington SummerSchool in 1972, in which each musicianperformed in response to one of severaltape loops selected randomly from re-cordings we had made at different loca-tions along the nearby River Dart. PianoConcert 1973) involved several perform-ers operating inside a piano and withlive electronic treatments.CONCLUSIONAll creative organizations seem to have anatural life of around 7 years, afterwhich substantial renewal is needed ifthey are to continue. Gentle Fire man-aged to evolve during the first 5 years ofits existence, but a variety of factors,mostly mentioned or implied above,caused the group's gradual demise. Af-ter 1972 our earnings from concerts fellsharply,and, due to the decreasing avail-ability of money in the arts, invitationswere less common. Hearn and I had al-ready established the principal elementsof our careers, but the three other mem-bers had not, and needed to explore dif-ferent potential sources of income [14].The York members had started out inthe group while they were still students,but skill in Gentle Fire's repertoire wasnot an appropriate qualification formore conventional musical activities atthe time. Rehearsals were often awkwardto schedule, with two members (laterone) living in Yorkshire and the othersin London. Finally, none of us had a

vested interest as a composer in makingthe group central to future composi-tions, and indeed the cooperative na-ture of the group would have preventedany member from trying to do so.I have long believed that the future ofelectronic music would be in live perfor-mance, with certain works produced ontape (or digital storage) in a studio be-cause they could not be created in realtime. It seems to me, however, that therewas a lull in the development of liveelectronic music after the early 1970s,and the medium only began to revive adecade later, with the introduction ofnew commercial devices such as digitaldelays, harmonizers and vocoders (and,later on, samplers) as well as, in certainareas, the early use of microcomputers.Today, of course, live electronic tech-niques have become widespread in alltypes and styles of music.References and Notes1. Hugh Davies, Repertoire international des musiqueselectroacoustiques/International Electronic Music Catalog(Cambridge, MA:MIT Press, 1968); ElectronicMusicReviewi -3 (April-July 1967) (special double issue).2. In the festival at York University,I also appearedin the Orton/Davies live electronic duo perfor-mance of Cage's Electronic Music for Piano.3. Hugh Davies, "Electronic Music:History and De-velopmenst," in John Vinton, ed., Dictionaryof Con-temporaryMusic (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1974) p.215 (published in U.K. as Dictionary of 20th CenturyMusic (I.ondon: Thames & Hudson, 1974).4. Alvin Lucier, "Gentle Fire," Source:Music of theAvant Garde 10, Alvin Lucier, special issue ed.,(1973) pp. 46-49 (score).

5. Karlheinz Stockhausen, From the Seven Days/Ausdensieben7agen (Vienna: Universal Edition, 1970)(score collection).6. Tim Souster, "Intermodulation: a Short History,"Contact 17 (Summer 1977) pp. 3-6.7. Paul Griffiths, The Thames and HudsonEncyclopaedia of 20th Century Music (London/NesYork:Thames & Hudson, 1986) p. 90 (reprinted in1996 as Dictionary of 20th Century Music).8. StuartJones, Graham Hearn and Hugh Davies,"Gentle Fire," in Lucier, ed. [4] pp. 84-87 (scoresof Graham Hearn, Drencher;Stuart Jones, I eave toI.ean To; Hugh Davies, Quintet).9.John Furnival, Ode,Ceolfrith Press 17-cm LP (PR1 (included with exh. cat.) (1971).10. Hugh Davies, "ASimple Ring-Modulator,"Mu-sics 6 (February-March 1976) pp. 3-5.11. Simon Emmerson, "Live Electronic Music inBritain: Three Case Studies," ContemporaryMusicReview 6, No. 1, 179-195 (1991) (includes a list ofabout half of the works in Gentle Fire's repertoire).12. Enmmerson 11].13. Michael Robinson, "Gentle Fire: the GroupCompositions," unpublished talk broadcast byWestdeutscher Rundfunk, Cologne, 1973.14. Richard Bernas is an orchestral conductor andpianist. I am a freelance composer, performer (of-ten solo), instrunment inventor and researcher.Patrick Harrex is active again as a composer andviolinist, having retired from his financial career.Graham Hearn is a college lecturer injazz and con-temporary music and a freelance pianist (jazz andrelated music). Stuart Jones is a freelance com-poser and performer, collaborator with visual artistsproducing linear and interactivework, head of NewMedia Design at Central St. MartinsCollege in Lon-don. Richard Orton is a composer and universitylecturer (appointed Emeritus Reader after early re-tirement in 1998), founder member of the York-based Composers Desktop Project and author ofthe algorithmic composition software TabulaVigilans. Michael Robinson is ajournalist workingmostly in television current affairs.

DiscographyFurnival, John. Ode,Ceolfrith Press 17-cnl CPR 1(incl. with exh. cat.John Furnival) (1971).Gentle Fire. Earle Brown, FourSystems;ohn Cage,Music for Amplified Toy Pianos and Music for CarillonNos. 1-3 (performer: Graham Hearn); ChristianWolff, Edges. Electrola LP 1C 065-02 469 andToshiba LP EAC-80295 (1974).Gentle Fire. Group Composition IV (excerpt) "LiveElectronics," Contemporary Music Review 6, No. 1(cassette incl. withjournal) (1991).Orton, Richard. concertmusic5, 17-cm LP includedin book Approachto Music, Vol. 3 (Oxford, U.K.:Oxford Univ. Press, 1971).Stockhausen, Karlheinz. Sternklang, Polydor LP2612031 and DGG LP 2707 123 (2 LPs) (1976); re-issued on Stockhausen Gesamtausgabe CD 18A-B(2CDs) (1992) (with 16 other performers).

Manuscript received 6 February 2001.

Since 1999, Hugh Davies has been a part-timeResearcher n Sonic Art at the Centrefor Elec-tronicArts, MiddlesexUniversity,London. Hisresearches oncentrateon twentieth-centurymu-sical instruments and electronicmusic, includ-ing chaptersin 20 books and exhibition cata-logues and contributionsto nine dictionaries.

60 I)avies, Gentle Fire

Documents

Gentle Fire - An Early Approach to Live Electronic Music (Hugh Davies)