The Acreage - collaboration as compositional method by Josh Spear

Actual collaboration is difficult and, as a composer, there are structures that exist within our system and institutions to keep the roles (of composer, musician) clearly defined and separate. This presentation will touch on just a few of the projects that I am undertaking and explore the challenges and work methods therein. These will be projects with my group Bastard Assignments, with pianist Zubin Kanga, and with two of my brothers. Each has begun similar preparations: preparation of materials, of scheduling of time, and conversation. Then what is important is how I respond to the reality of what happens and perhaps how that is changing. With each project being quite different from the one before, it can be a challenge to find a thread to follow or a hypothesis to test. Near the beginning of this project, I identified some key advantages of working with Bastard Assignments in a more collaborative way, as devisers, and now I follow that trajectory through to a larger scale project with them and an expanded team. The language we are beginning to use to describe our processes is beginning to change too. Poetic modes of reflection or use of metaphor to describe outcomes have enabled a thread to be found and help me to situate what happens in the rehearsal room within a wider field. I have also begun to build case studies of other composer-performers/choreographers to build a clearer context for myself and of this way of working. How far am I willing to go with collaboration as my compositional method? Are there implications for me, my collaborators, and for composers in general?

WELCOME

As a brief introduction for how to navigate this project.

On the following page is a seemingly elaborate grid system. The sub-projects can be read in any order.

Each contains an account of itself with a good deal of reflection and documentation of many kinds.

It should be said that the work named "Music for Human Face" is to be experienced on VR headset or some other system where 360 video can be watched and heard. I have such a device.

There is a section of case studies made with and on colleagues who I identify with and are working outside of traditional categories. It is my hope that this acts as my chosen context and is far more illuminating that simply describing myself as a composer or composer-performer.

Below I define some terms that appear again and again and they can be understood as audio explanations however I have also provided the text to the side.

define:

composer-performer

taking ownership

creative acreage

VR/360

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