Burdocks (1971)

Burdocks is for one or more groupings of players. It’s a collection (from which one can choose what to play) of different, distinctive compositional ideas in ten parts. The ten parts include specific notations on staves; notations indicating only durations, often depending on other sounds a player hears; and various verbal directions beth explicit and suggestive. Various numbers of performers (no upward limit) can play, using any means of making sounds. Any number of the ten parts can be played simultaneously or overlapped.

I had an image in my mind (before having heard them) of the Scratch Orchestra, a varied community of musicians (classical, folk, experimental, jazz, et cetera), professional and amateur and non-musicians, joined in a populist-anarchist spirit, more or less guided by Cornelius Cardew with Howard Skempton and Michael Parsons. I had also been affected by hearing a recording of Ba-Benzele Pygmy music, quasi improvised, polyphonically, by a whole community.