O.P. Air

While at the ISIM conference, several of us brainstormed the idea of doing a 'telematic' performance of Cobra (or an adapted version of it) with musicians of varying levels of musical experience. There have been several projects involving telematic music making (musical collaborations done in real-time via computers/video conference with musicians in various parts of the country) over the past few years. But to our knowledge, a telematic collaboration in improvisation with musicians of a young age (middle school) and more experienced musicians (college students and faculty), would be a new undertaking. Some type of structured improvisation (Cobra, Soundpainting) seems like a logical way to engage in this endeavor. In fact, bassist Mark Dresser speaks of his experiences with telematic music (and using Soundpainting) here. A collection of journal articles dealing with telematic music can be accessed (with subscription) here.

As we are in the very beginning stages of developing this project, we are starting to organize thoughts, challenges, and possibilities therein. Ashley and I have begun having our middle school students improvise interactively using Cobra cues (and some of our own adapted cues). Paul Scea has expressed an interest in having his students at WVU (where he actually offers a course in which he teaches Cobra) participate in this project. We have all started talking about the technology necessary in order to make the project work. We've also had some interest from Arthur White and his crew at the University of Missouri. At this point, in order to give the project a name, we shall refer to it as 'O.P. Air'.

Some initial thoughts:

• Our current thought is to have one central prompter (who for lack of a better term right now we will shall refer to as the 'Wizard') who will give cues to "local prompters", who will then in turn give cues to their respective ensembles.
• Although the 'Wizard' (who should be able to hear all/each of the ensembles at will) can give cues to local prompters, she/he will also receive cues from the local prompters as they are requested from ensemble members in each location.
• The local prompters will simply act as a liaison between their ensemble and the 'Wizard'. At this point, we think the local prompters will not give cues on their own. This decision was made in part to encourage the democratic nature of this kind of music making, thereby allowing for the performers in each ensemble to play the largest role in making musical choices and requesting cues.
• Each location will only hear themselves. Only the 'Wizard' will have the ability to hear everyone (I think this poses the greatest technological challenge). In a sense, each local ensemble will endeavor to create their own musical 'piece'. The 'Wizard' may endeavor to interject musical decisions that influence all of the local ensembles.
• High-quality audio recordings should be made in each location in order to document their local performance. These recordings will then be shared and combined in order to create a 'master recording'. That master recording can then be collaboratively edited to create a musical product that combines the musical thinking of all of the ensembles.

We are still discussing which Cobra cues may or may not be conducive to this project. I will post more about this soon. We do think an adapted form of Cobra will work best, although we are also exploring adding some new cues, some of which may be influenced by Soundpainting.

We are also still discussing the technology to make this work. Will Skype be feasible? Should we explore some of the other computer technologies that others have already used---if so, what might those costs be? If we use Skype, how many accounts/laptops would be necessary for this to work.

There are certainly many questions to be addressed. Nonetheless, I think this project offers many exciting musical and educational possibilities.