Decentralized Music Creation

Decentralized music creation is an approach in which individuals share the labor involved in creating music. Decentralized music creation can be used to envision new ways of being, working and living together. This is an experimental approach, where the results are often unknown at the beginning of a process. It is also a collaborative approach which relies on shared leadership and frequently exchange roles.

Experimental music creation- music creation approached from a position of openness, inquiry, uncertainty, and discovery- can be used as a powerful tool to envision new ways of being together, to imagine possible communities. Musician, educator and author, Christopher Small, writes “That the experience [of performing music] is more of the desire for than of the actuality of community is part of [the] point; the relationships created during a musical performance of any kind are more the ideal, as imagined by the participants, than the present reality.” Small elaborates “… a musical performance, while it lasts, brings into existence relationships that model in metaphoric form those which they would like to see in the wider society of their everyday lives.”

My motivation to look for alternatives to the dominant composer-performer-audience member dynamic in western classical music, in which strict hierarchical relationships are enacted in the process of creation and often represented in the resulting music, derives from a vision of a society where people are encouraged and supported in engaging deeply with the organizations, structures and institutions around them, including critiquing, reshaping, creating alternatives and intentionally remaining passive.

I specify western classical music, as many other music traditions incorporate a greater level of participation and collaboration into the creative process. Small similarly identifies the western classical concert experience as unique in this way- “What is singular about the culture of the modern concert hall is the extent to which listening- detached, contemplative listening- has become the purpose of the performance.”

I am not arguing that decentralized music creation is the only option for music making. Rather I am arguing that the approach taken to music creation has consequences and that I am personally and collectively (with others in various creative music communities) interested in collaborative approaches. I want to find ways of working that promote interdependence and inclusivity and I believe that decentralized music creation is an approach that supports these goals. 

Publications:

Fire is Scary: Translating Sound and Image- Collectively written article by Fire is Scary (Sole Enae Lee, Gordon H. Williams, Agustin Faundez Rojas and Ariel Sin Yu Lee) as part of School of Commons Issues

But the Real, Actual Power of it is the Building of Friendships: Generosity and Intimacy in Collective Practices- Dialogue with Tomi Hilsee as part of a residency with After Illusion

Non-hierarchical Music Creation: an Interview with Gordon H. Williams- Interview shared on the Delegates Post page for Decolonising the Musical University

Propositions for Non-hierarchical Music Creation: Artistic Alternatives to the Dominant Composer-Performer-Audience Dynamic in Western Classical Music- HKU Utrechts Conservatorium Master’s Thesis

Tributaries.- Collaborative Art Publication