Accumulations  2024

In 1983 I recorded a number of piano improvisations on compact cassette. I kept these recordings to myself not really knowing what, if anything, I could do with them. Listening to the atmospheric slow pieces from time to time I felt they had some special qualities I really liked, and had meaning. In 2024 I transferred these analogue tapes to my computer. Now accessible I started thinking how they might be developed and shared. The slower, more meditative recordings might be taken up and developed by an experienced pianist, or enhanced with very subtle additions. Other, more experimental recordings, playing with the sonic qualities of the piano, seemed to lend themselves to far more open ended exploration. I started with a simple, almost clockwork like track, later calling it Dressage Blues, where I layered the tracks over four different sequences.
From this starting point I devised a musical experiment - Accumulations - using the nine old piano recordings and two recent alto clarinet improvisations as starting points for each Accumulation.
This is how the project proceeds for each piece:

Accumulation 1 - Initial soundtrack
Accumulation 2 - musician 2 responding to Accumulation 1
Accumulation 3 - musician 3 responding to Accumulation 2
and so on...  

Some basic guidelines:
Each Accumulation layer is either recorded by a different musician, or a new sound recording layer is added.
Each new instrument/recording is added to preceeding track(s), building layers of Accumulations, creating a connection between all the players - though none of them play directly with each other.
There is no opportunity for rehearsal or to become familiar with the track before the player is recorded.
I have the freedom to edit and alter each recording sequence.

This process continues, potentially indefinitely, although there may be markers at certain times which acknowledge particular points that have been reached.