Our ‘Conspiracies’ performance was a 42 minute instruction piece, which was also based on improvisation. We had Chris Cutler (drummer) come in to perform with us and to be our conductor. There were no groups formed, we all played together in a big circle with the instruments of our choice. I chose to use the keyboard for this performance. We also had to pay attention to the time which was displayed on a projector, that was the most important part of the performance.
We were all given a piece of paper with the minutes and we had to pick numbers out of a box to note down where our ‘Conspiracies’ would be which was in the rectangle boxes as seen in the image below.
The performance started with a minute of silence and after that the conspiracies started. I had numbers 2, 17 and 29 which meant that in those short minutes I could play anything I wanted, plus we could choose people to join in. For my first conspiracy, I chose to do a cover of a song called Mad World by Gary Jules and I asked my friend next to me to play the bass notes. I chose this because it was simple and easy to play as it only had 4 chords (Em G D Am). For my second conspiracy I asked my friend again to play the c major scale on the lower end of the keyboard while I played arpeggios/improvisation on the higher end. For the last conspiracy I chose to do another cover called Heart Shaped Box by Nirvana, this song again was very easy and simple to play and only had 3 chords (Am F Dm).
For the first short sounds we were put in groups so that each group would have different seconds to play a sound. For example I was put on group 3 and my seconds were, for the first 2 minutes, to play every 10 seconds and for the last 2 minutes to play every 6 seconds. Also for this part, our tutors chose 2 soloists (guitar and violin) and while everyone was playing their seconds they were, let’s say, “battling each other”.
For the drone sounds we basically had to play one sound for 2 minutes straight and play around with dynamics.
For the second short sounds we had to play a sound in various tempos while also making sure it wasn’t in time with anyone else.
Finally for the free sections we were allowed to play anything we wanted until the conductor said not to, when that happened we had to play just 1 simple thing while also waiting 3 seconds after and then playing again, waiting, playing, etc. After that, the conductor stood and signalled to us to slowly fade out to end the performance.
Here is the performance video link: https://youtu.be/OSXQ-9LvS28
Overall, I think we as a group did a very good job for this piece. The conspiracies were my favourite part because I didn’t know what anyone was going to play. I think that the fading out could of been much better, I don’t think that everyone was paying attention to the conductor so if we were to perform this again we would definitely need to work on that.
Mariana Bagulho 