Gentle Fire: An Early Approach to Live Electronic Music

Author(s): Hugh Davies

Source: Leonardo Music Journal, Vol. 11, Not Necessarily "English Music": Britain's Second
Golden Age (2001), pp. 53-60
Published by: The MIT Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1513428
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Gentle Fire: An Early Approach
to Live Electronic Music

Hugh Davies
ABSTRACT

The author describes thecir-

cumstances oftheformation and
development oftheliveelectronic
musicgroupGentle Fire,indis-
cussingaspectsaffecting elec-
trnir, milcir,r;n ginnvornl
edi nnrl 'th,o
the mid-1960s, several initially unrelated music i
Erom words, nearly all electronic particular dIUl LIeHe
to theensemble.
developments brought into being small groups of young mu- production was background or stressesGentleFire's distinctive
sical performers who were substantially more happy-go-lucky applied music for radio, televi- approaches toward collaboration
and self-reliant than previous generations. They traveled sion, theater and film, either andtechnology, givingparticular
around to play "gigs"like hippies, in secondhand vans filled from the BBC's Radiophonic attention to itsunique groupcom-
positions. Collaborations withcon-
with instruments and sound equipment, often for little or no Workshop or from private studios temporaries arealsodiscussed.
money. To many people this immediately conjures up the such as those of Tristram Cary Finally,theauthor addresses the
more adventurous rock music that developed in the heyday and Daphne Oram [1]. factorsleading to thedissolution
of the Beatles and U.S. West Coast rock groups, but it was also The only major composer to ofthegroup.
paralleled in areas of contemporary composed music. have worked more extensively in
The contributing developments included more affordable the medium was Roberto
and transportable sound equipment of all kinds, partly due to Gerhard, but regrettably he also
the increasing availability of transistorized electronic devices produced very little tape music for concerts, apart from the
such as small mixers and power amplifiers. By the end of the SymphonyNo. 3 (Collages)for orchestra and tape (1960). None
1960s, it had become possible to build simple circuits from of the younger generation of avant-garde composers, either
magazines without any detailed knowledge of electronics, members of the "Manchester School" of Peter Maxwell
and thus some musicians who lacked such expertise found Davies, Harrison Birtwistle and Alexander Goehr or the Lon-
themselves able unassisted to adapt existing circuits and de- don-trained Richard Rodney Bennett and Cornelius Cardew,
vise other simple ones for use in personal electronic music had produced any serious contribution to the medium up to
studios and especially in live electronic music. then, and, with minor exceptions, only Birtwistle was to do so
Above all, however, it was the freer musical attitudes of that subsequently. Live electronic music was nonexistent.
decade that motivated such developments. At the end of the This situation changed radically after 1968, when the first
1950s composers had begun to explore indeterminate and active university and college studios were set up in London, at
mobile forms, unspecified instrumentation and graphic nota- Goldsmiths' (now Goldsmiths) College and the Royal College
tion in works that in this article I will describe as "experimen- of Music and at York University; the presence of a modular
tal music" (just as I have retained other terminology from the Moog synthesizer at Manchester University from 1967 did not
time, such as "electronic music"). These elements were emi- lead to any significant creative or pedagogic results.
nently suited to live electronic music, for which no standard Following Cardew'swork with Stockhausen around 1960, I
method has been devised to notate the operation of oscilla- was the latter's assistant for 2 years in the mid-1960s, which in-
tors, filters and other devices; it also requires greater flexibil- cluded participation in performances of his first live electronic
ity from the performers to accommodate imprecisions that compositions (Mixturand Mikrophonie Iand II) as a member of
may arise at any stage of the basic chain of sound production, his newly formed live electronic group. This was Stockhausen's
modification and amplification. first contact with the youngest generation of British compos-
Gentle Fire was one such group. It was founded in 1968 ers, consolidated soon afterwards by Tim Souster and Roger
and gave its last concert in 1975. As one of its members, I Smalley (the co-founders in 1969 of the Cambridge-based live
have reconstructed much of what we experienced some 30 electronic group Intermodulation). Among other things this
years ago, aided by feedback from other members of the contact led to the participation in 1971 of all the members of
group. Gentle Fire and Intermodulation in the earliest performances
of Sternklang,of three members of Gentle Fire in Alphabetfur
Liege (1972) and of Michael Robinson from Gentle Fire and
BRITISH ELECTRONICMUSIC IN THE 1960S two members of Intermodulation as guests with the London
Electronic music in Britain had an unusual early history. My Sinfonietta in 1973 on a Stockhausen tour in Stop and the
InternationalElectronicMusic Catalog,compiled in the winter of world premiere of Ylem.
1966-1967, showed that until then there had been a very low
proportion of concert works in Britain in relation to its posi- Hugh Davies (composer, performer), 25 Albert Road, London, N4 3RR, U.K. E-mail:
tion as the fourth most prolific producer worldwide; in other <[email protected]>.

O 2001 ISAST LEONARDO MUSICJOURNAL, Vol. 11, pp. 53-60, 2001 53

 The influence of Stockhausen's ap- was obliged to become more proficient GROUP MEMBERS AND
proach to live electronics, however, in- with the fairly basic studio equipment, INSTRUMENTATION
volving his typically detailed composi- especially in its maintenance.
tional control over what was played and Early in 1968 Orton began to hold The following were the members of
operated, was, in my own work and that Saturday morning experimental music Gentle Fire during its 1968-1975 exist-
of Gentle Fire, counterbalanced by that sessions in York for any music students ence:
of John Cage and David Tudor, who fea- who were interested; all future mem- * Richard Bernas: piano, percussion
tured greater freedoms and more diverse bers of the group (see section below), (including tabla), voice
combinations of sound sources and often apart from myself, took a prominent * Hugh Davies: invented instruments,
of independent loudspeaker channels. part in these. That summer, the future live electronics, clarinet (khene,sheng
This was exemplified in a remarkable members of Gentle Fire figured promi- [Oriental mouth organs])
concert they gave in London, together nently in a series of four concerts of ex- * Patrick Harrex: violin, percussion
with Gordon Mumma, in November 1966 perimental music at York University [2] * Graham Hearn: piano, recorder,
during a visit by the Merce Cunningham and one at Sheffield University. There- VCS-3 synthesizer, percussion
Dance Company, which for many years after, the York-based group members * StuartJones: trumpet, cello (electric
was talked about as a major landmark by consulted the I Chingon the best way to guitar)
all who were in the audience. extend their previous activities: * Richard Orton: tenor voice, live elec-
hexagram No. 37, the Family, came tronics
up-the two trigrams of which are Sun * Michael Robinson: cello, piano.
HOW GENTLE FIRE CAME
and Li, meaning Gentle Wind and One of the original members, Harrex,
INTO EXISTENCE decided early in 1970 that his intended
Clinging Fire respectively-indicating
After completing my work with clearly to the group that they should career would conflict with the need to
Stockhausen, followed by the compila- continue these activities and supplying be flexibly available for group rehearsals
tion of my InternationalElectronicMusic the name Gentle Fire. and concerts; he was replaced by
Catalogin Paris and the United States, I Following the first couple of perfor- Robinson, who had also participated in
returned to Britain in the summer of mances in York and nearby Hull, as a re- the 1968 Saturday morning sessions in
1967, moving to London in the early au- sult of my existing duo connection with York. A year later Orton also left, prima-
tumn. I was invited to set up a small elec- Orton and my slightly greater experi- rily because of similar difficulties with
tronic music studio at Goldsmiths' Col- ence with live electronics, I was added to his teaching commitments. After Orton
lege, then part of London University, the group in November 1968; I had al- left we decided to continue as a quintet
and began giving evening classes there ready worked with all the other mem- rather than a sextet, since (apart from
for adults in January 1968. Richard bers in other contexts, having included GroupCompositionI) there was nothing
Orton, whom I had met 2 years before at works by Orton and Richard Bernas in a in our current or potential repertoire
Cambridge University and had re- concert series I was organizing in Lon- for which the additional person was re-
mained in contact with, had recently don, and having performed a group im- quired. Hearn occasionally was not avail-
been appointed lecturer in the music provisation in an open-air concert in able for a concert, requiring us to select
department at York University (which London with three of the York students a program for four performers. We also
was about to move into a purpose-built in the summer of 1968. The Orton/ began to shift the focus of the group
complex and become the most adven- Davies live electronic duo overlapped awayfrom York, as Bernas and Robinson
turous music department in Britain over with the group for another half year, ful- had already moved to London.
the next few years) and installed a simi- filling lower-budget invitations. Origi- Although all of us are listed as playing
lar studio there a couple of months nally The Gentle Fire, the group's name more than one instrument, our apparent
later. In the summer of 1968 he and I was later altered to Gentle Fire. abilities as multi-instrumentalists are
formed a live electronic duo, which gave At around that time, I analyzed live partly misleading; with the exception of
some 10 concerts in the course of a year electronic music as the simultaneous Jones, only the first-named instrument in
(including the British premiere of live electronic transformation of sounds the list above was a primary one that we
Cage's ElectronicMusicfor Piano), as well whose sources fall into one or more of occasionally played outside the group,
as performing live electronics in one four categories [3], which are here usually in more conventional music. In
work by each of us and in the British somewhat expanded: sounds played on addition to the instruments listed above,
premiere of Stockhausen's Mikrophonie conventional instruments (or quasi-con- all or most of us occasionally also played
II; all of these involved additional per- ventional invented instruments); on piano and/or other keyboards, VCS3
formers, using a combination of our found or adapted objects (or equivalent (Putney) synthesizers, conventional or
own equipment and a few items tempo- noise-making invented instruments); on found percussion, invented instruments
rarily borrowed from our respective stu- electronic oscillators or instruments and, where required, we also spoke or
dios. We were both self-taught on the (which, like synthesizers, may incorpo- sang, in addition to operating electronic
technical side, learning as we went rate their own modification devices); equipment. In certain pieces, in which
along; in my own evening classes I was and sounds replayed from earlier re- an understanding of the composer's style
frequently aware that in some areas I cordings (which more recently would and intentions were of crucial impor-
was only a couple of weeks more ad- include samplers). Stockhausen had tance, and little or no virtuosity was re-
vanced than some of my students. The concentrated mainly on the first cat- quired (primarily in works with unspeci-
York University studio was to get its first egory; Cage, Tudor and Mumma on the fied instrumentation), other instruments
permanent technician within the next 2 three others; between us Orton and I, were used: for example, Hearn and
years, but at Goldsmiths' College this individually and in the duo, explored all Orton played violins and Bernas the
did not happen until a decade later, so I four, as did Gentle Fire. viola in Earle Brown's FourSystems(Jones

54 Davies, Gentle Fire

played a conveniently available double sound becomes gold / becomes pure, Paul Griffiths [7] as the two (European)
bass instead of cello on an early record- calmly burning fire";but when my efforts live electronic groups that-unlike
ing we made of this work, forming a were amalgamated for the published AMM and Musica Elettronica Viva-had
more conventional string quintet). Occa- score with translations by two American specialized in composed music. Inter-
sionally in rehearsal, when we were get- composers living in Cologne, the final modulation almost alwaysappeared with
ting stale and playing too much unneces- version ended up as "and the whole a VCS3 for each of the four group mem-
sarily,we would even swap instruments in sound turns to gold / to pure, gently bers, often for the transformation of the
order to avoid cliches (e.g. I once played shimmering fire" [5]. I don't remember sound of each player's instrument,
one of the cellos). who originally suggested this change, whereas in Gentle Fire there was usually
perhaps someone from the group, but, only one, played by Hearn as an instru-
when Stockhausen very thoroughly ment in its own right. The virtuosic ele-
COLLABORATIONS checked the English translation, he ac- ment that was a feature of Inter-
The group worked with Stockhausen on cepted it as an interesting coincidence. modulation as performers was much less
many occasions. Although we knew Both Gentle Fire and Intermod- prominent with Gentle Fire, as reflected
Cage, Tudor and Mumma, having met ulation were recommended by Stock- in the nature of each group's chosen
up with them in at least three cities hausen on several occasions when a fes- repertoire and specially composed
when we and they were touring Europe tival needed other performers for works pieces. West Germany was the most fre-
in the summer of 1972, we only per- by him; between 1971 and 1975, both quent destination for both groups, only
formed with them once, in Christian groups performed in Sternklangin West partly through the Stockhausen connec-
Wolff's Burdocks, together with the Berlin, Munich (two performances), tion; because of its federal structure,
Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Shiraz, La Rochelle, Paris (twice) and nine radio stations across the country
on one night that autumn at the Sadler's made the commercial recording. For had substantial funds for supporting
Wells Theatre (now the Coliseum) in two further performances in Bonn in contemporary music, and one could be
London. We also collaborated several 1980, Gentle Fire had its only reunion, sure of interest from producers in at
times with Erhard Grosskopf (who wrote in which Orton returned as a guest. On least a couple of these-Gentle Fire and
one work for us and featured us in the some of these occasions we also had the Intermodulation were each invited by
world premieres of two others) and opportunity to include works by our- the same four radio stations, either to-
Wolff and, early on, once with the selves or by other composers, or were gether or independently.
painter and composer Tom Phillips. In subsequently invited back for this pur- During a festival at London's Royal
1974 Grosskopf and Wolff (who at the pose. Although Gentle Fire's interests Court theater in 1970, Gentle Fire put
time was also living in West Berlin) per- and sound world were very different on the first of three performances of
formed in their own works with us at from Stockhausen's own (more so than Stockhausen's rarely staged theater
short notice when Hearn was not avail- those of Intermodulation), we worked piece Obenund Unten, in which the two
able for a concert at a festival in Metz; hard in realizing his music; even in his adult performers were Marianne
Wolff also volunteered to take part in intuitive text scores from Aus den sieben Faithfull and Ian Hogg, and some mem-
our performance of Stockhausen's Tagenand Fur kommendeZeiten, each of bers of the group worked with a group
we
Spektren; happily accepted. Frederic our performances was clearly recogniz- of actors from the same theater for a few
Rzewski considered composing an "elec- able as based on the score in question. days in 1971.
tronic symphony" for us, and Earle One of the most memorable occasions Our contacts with artists from other
Brown was also interested in writing for was in 1972, when we performed media occasionally found us appearing
the group. Although Alvin Lucier al- Intensitdt in the presence of the com- at the same event as, for example, sound
lowed us to give the premiere of his poser in a concert during the poets, and included performances at the
score GentleFire[4], it was not composed Rencontres Internationales d'Art festivals organized by the sound poet
specially for us (because it required so- Contemporain at La Rochelle; unlike Henri Chopin at his home in Essex. In
phisticated sound processing equipment most interpretations of these intuitive 1970 we commissioned a pentagonal
for what would now be called sonic scores by us and by other groups, in- graphic score from the artist John
morphing, it was not really suited to the stead of the often-occurring situation of Furnival, Ode (A Two-GuineaOdefor the
group, unlike his Chambers,which we one musician continuing what he was GentleFire, Including, for GoodMeasure,
performed several times). Lucier in- playing for some time after everyone The Ballad of FearlessFred), for which we
tended the title of GentleFireto refer to else had finished, the music built to a paid the modest sum of two guineas (?2-
the alchemical meaning (i.e. the slow climax and ended quickly and cleanly; 2s in pre-decimal currency). As a foot-
heating of metals for their transmuta- regrettably, no recording was made. note, the program for one of the
tion) and was unaware of our group's The widely recognized similarities be- group's first major concerts in London
origin in the I Ching. tween Gentle Fire and Intermodulation was designed and printed by Brian Eno.
Another work in our repertoire that as live electronic composer-performer The summer of 1972 was a peak period
also referred to the group's name was groups with a strong Stockhausen con- for British experimental music, not only
Stockhausen's 1968 verbal score Setzdie nection outweighed the differences that for Gentle Fire, which made four trips
Segelzur Sonne (Set the Sails towards the we ourselves saw. The careers of both abroad in 5 months, to Cologne and
Sun). In the version that I originally groups were in many ways parallel, as Essen, Zfirich and West Berlin, Munich
made of several of the texts from Aus den can be seen by comparing the present and Shiraz (in pre-Khomeini Iran) and
sieben Tagenfor British performances, I article with a retrospective on Liege. With the exception of a single con-
translated the last two lines "undderganze Intermodulation published in 1977 by cert in Essen, in each city we performed
Klang zu Gold / zu reinem, ruhig Souster [6]. In 1986 Gentle Fire and in two or three concerts and/or partici-
leuchtendem Feuerwird' as "and the whole Intermodulation were singled out by pated in workshops, rehearsals with other

Davies, Gentle Fire 55

musicians or recordings. All the other had created. In these courses we did not sionally we needed to supplement it by
British groups were also very busy, espe- always concentrate on our personal rep- hiring one or more VCS3 synthesizers,
cially performing around Europe. This ertoire or indeed on live electronic tech- with which we were all already familiar.
level of activity in 1972 has never been niques; in workshops, especially for On one occasion, when at short notice
matched since. In the following year the members of the public, we often used we had to fly to a festival in France, we
first oil crisis ended that optimism, and Robert Ashley's entirely vocal She Was a took our own amplifiers, but in spite of
reduced the foreign invitations to Gentle Visitoror Hearn's AmbulatoryMusic. informing the organizer in advance of
Fire (we were still optimistic for the next The only scores published under the the specifications we needed, the loud-
year or so, with our LP recording of name of the group were three that were speakers that were supplied for us
American works appearing in 1974; we printed in 1973 in an issue of Source: proved to be no more than adequate.
even started to plan a possible trip to Aus- Music of theAvant Garde,edited by Alvin There are also advantages in using
tralia and the Far East); but by 1975 the Lucier. As far as I remember there was homemade equipment, which can al-
changed situation was certainly one of some editorial confusion as a result of most alwaysbe repaired quite quickly.
the reasons for the group's demise in that papers being mixed up after a car acci- We played a number of "homemade"
year. The last concert with a typical dent, which meant that two members of invented instruments. I specialized in
Gentle Fire program took place in De- Gentle Fire were not represented, and doing so, in around 20 pieces, and fea-
cember 1974, and in the summer of 1975 that only one of the three scores that tured them in two ensemble works of my
we participated in two performances of were printed, my own, was part of our own. Robinson's gHong, a "gong-tree"
Sternklangand the LP recording of it in repertoire! [8] that formed the central part of Group
Paris, followed by a group improvisation We had comparably mixed fortunes CompositionsIII and T, is described be-
at a college and the performances of two with LP recordings (see Discography). low in connection with those pieces.
pieces by Robinson in a small art gallery Our first studio recording, featuring Jones constructed a type of tabletop
in London, in both cases with one mem- Brown's Four Systems,Toshi Ichiyanagi's electric sitar, which incorporated a real
ber of the group missing. Appearance,Stockhausen's Treffpunktand sitar bridge and strings.
Wolff's ForJill, was never released. This The loudspeakers at York University
was followed by a recording session at were specially assembled locally to a de-
UNUSUAL PERFORMANCES
EMI's prestigious Abbey Road studios of sign by the manufacturer of the speaker
AND OTHER PROJECTS music by Brown, Cage and Wolff units, Tannoy, based on the Monitor
Although we specialized in perfor- (supplemented in Loughborough by Gold model. In order to fund this
mances of concert works, Gentle Fire Hearn's performance of three of Cage's project, a larger quantity was assembled
enjoyed the challenge of performing in pieces for solo carillon on one of the than the university needed; I bought a
unusual spaces. In addition to theaters, only such instruments in Britain) which set of four, which were subsequently
art galleries and museums (one wasjust was released in 1974, but only in West used in most of Gentle Fire's concerts.
a building site) and a church, we per- Germany (on Electrola) and Japan (on Like most other live electronic groups of
formed on several occasions in parks Toshiba). Together with Intermodula- the time, we could not afford a sophisti-
and streets. At the Shiraz Festival in tion we were among the 21 musicians cated studio mixer, but used several
1972, we appeared at a roundabout on who recorded Stockhausen's double LP Uher mixers (designed primarily for op-
the outskirts of the city one morning at of Sternklang,reissued in 1992 as a CD eration with the company's portable
8 A.M. and played one of Stockhausen's on his own label. Otherwise, only two reel-to-reel tape recorders), which also
verbal scores on acoustic instruments; short pieces came out on 17-cm (7") function well as contact microphone
we were soon surrounded by an in- discs: Orton's concertmusic 5 (accompa- preamplifiers; careful adjustment of dif-
trigued audience of passersby-until the nying a book in an educational series) ferent volume controls in the amplifica-
security police arrived to break up the and Furnival's Ode (included in a retro- tion chain reduces noise to a level unno-
concert and remove us and our instru- spective exhibition catalog [9]). Since ticeable by an audience. I continue to
ments from the scene. In 1971, at the then, a brief excerpt from GroupCompo- use them in all performances on my in-
very first open-air rock festival in sition IVappeared in the 1991 "LiveElec- vented instruments.
Glastonbury, we gave the premiere of tronics" issue of Contemporary Music Re- In 1972 I built a special stereo pream-
GroupCompositionIV (GlastonburyFair) at view, and one from GroupCompositionVI plifier box for each member of the
dawn as the last event of a night's music, is included on the CD accompanying group, designed originally for use in
on a stage set high up in the side of a sil- this issue of LMJ. (See Discography for Sternklang,incorporating the plug-in ste-
ver-clad pyramid and, together with recording details.) We are currently in reo input preamplifier circuit board for
Intermodulation, the Scratch Orchestra negotiation with two small labels over the Revox A77 tape recorder. While we
and other British groups, participated in the possibility of issuing a CD of record- were working in Zurich for 4 days on a
a multi-room "Wandelkonzert" at the ings from our archive; some broadcast course for music students, we took the
Goethe Institute in London. recordings probably still survive in the opportunity to drive out to Revox's head
Among the workshops we gave as a archives of radio stations. office nearby and bought the boards di-
group, we held seminars and workshops rectly from the company.
and performed concerts at the My transformation equipment used in
SPECIAL INSTRUMENTS AND
Dartington Summer School in 1971 (for the group included simple homemade
1 week) and 1972 (for a fortnight), and ELECTRONIC EQUIPMENT and adapted pedals for ring-modulation
in 1972 also contributed to a course for We normally took four loudspeakers and distortion, as well as a two-range
composition students in Ziirich, which with us and set up a quadraphonic commercial wa-wa (filter) pedal and a
included adding live performances in a sound system. It is always more satisfac- choice of bandpass filters, primarily a
concert to two tapes that the students tory to use one's own equipment. Occa- Krohn-Hite model with separate low- and

56 Davies, Gentle Fire

high-pass control knobs, which could be as Intermodulation), we possessed the a range of living composers, from solos
operated in a manuallyjerky manner that alternative electronic resources that bet- to quintets (originally sextets), that of-
approximated the switched steps of the ter matched our musical approach, fa- fered considerable freedom to the per-
unusual filters used in Stockhausen's live voring timbre over pitch. formers, often notated verbally and oc-
electronic group. Our realization of Although most of the instrumental casionally graphically, and frequently
Brown's early graphic score Four Systems players in Sternklang-apart from Bernas without precise instrumentation; we sub-
featured the wa-wapedal and a modified as the central percussionist-used a sequently only programmed an improvi-
telephone dial, which "gated" sounds VCS3 (or the suitcase Synthi A/AKS ver- sation about once every 2 years. Al-
routed through two of its terminals when, sion) to process their sounds, this was though we specialized in live
after "winding it up," I slowly let the dial mainly necessary because their low-pass electronics, some pieces that we per-
return to its resting position by maintain- filters could be set to a high resonance, formed were entirely acoustic, including
ing my index finger in it. Five (later four) so that, controlled by a pedal, they oscil- works by Ashley, Cage, Cardew,
bowed strings playing a slowly changing lated as a sine wave at the cutoff fre- Feldman, Wolff and Hearn. Around half
sustained background chord were ampli- quency, to match the whistle-like over- of the works in our repertoire are listed
fied and mixed down to a single channel, tones produced by the singers (as first in Simon Emmerson's brief survey, "Live
which was fed through the pedal and tele- introduced in Stockhausen's Stimmung). Electronic Music in Britain" [11], which
phone dial. This enabled me to interpret After the first performance in 1971, we naturally excludes the acoustic pieces.
the sequence of horizontal rectangles commissioned a friend of mine to de- We played more works by Stockhausen
that make up the score with appropriately sign and construct a set of similar filters, than by any other composer, including
filtered bands extracted from the spec- so that Jones, Robinson and I did not nine pieces from his two sets of intuitive
trum of the complete string sound. need to borrow or hire a synthesizer. verbal scores and four works in which in-
My homemade passive ring-modula- Jones's realization of Stockhausen's dividual realizations with improvisational
tor contained only the basic compo- Spiral on the trumpet in 1971 empha- elements needed to be made. Two
nents, as given in various publications sized how we became increasingly able (Kurzwellen and Spiral) are based on
and described in detail in my 1976 ar- to mimic or replace many types of live shortwave radio sounds, and the other
ticle "A Simple Ring-Modulator" [10]: electronic treatment with our own type two (Sternklangand Alphabetfur Liege)in-
two center-tapped transformers and a of extended performance techniques- volve larger groups of performers. In ad-
"bridge"of four diodes. The main prob- not so much in a virtuosic direction (as dition to our Group Compositions and
lem with all ring-modulators is the leak- exemplified subsequently by woodwind nearly all of the group members' indi-
age of the carrier input, which I discov- multiphonics), but by simpler methods vidual works in our repertoire, we gave
ered was on the earth (ground) such as more subtle timbre control or the world premieres of Stockhausen's
connection, and thus unavoidable with- Jones blowing his trumpet into a bucket verbal scores Anndherung (Approxima-
out additional circuitry. However, it does containing water for a bubbling modula- tion, later retitled Ubereinstimmung [Una-
not occur when both inputs are from tion effect; air or contact microphones nimity]) in 1970 and Spektren(Spectra)
sources that are not oscillators, such as were usually necessary, but it would have in 1972, and participated in the world
microphones and prerecorded tapes. been possible to dispense with them in a premieres of Sternklang(1971) and Al-
When an oscillator was essential, we small room. phabet fur Liege (1972), as well as
managed to disguise the leakage as What we managed to achieve with Grosskopfs Sun (1972) and Looping(spe-
much as possible, in whatever way was mostly homemade devices for live elec- cially written for us, 1973), Furnival's Ode
appropriate for the piece in question. In tronic transformation by around 1970 (the only work we commissioned, 1971),
this basic form of ring-modulator the was mirrored 15 years later by the first Tom Phillips' graphic score Op. X No. 6
two inputs are not electrically identical, attempts at using high-end digital equip- (together with the composer, 1968) and
since one of them is connected directly ment like the DMX-1000. All the trans- Lucier's Gentle Fire (1972). Among a
to the center taps of the two transform- formation techniques that I heard in a dozen British premieres were Cage's Car-
ers; experimentation was necessary to couple of live electronic works in the tridgeMusic, Mauricio Kagel's Transicion
discover the most appropriate input for mid-1980s by young composers (who II, Stockhausen's Kurzwellen, Oben und
an oscillator, one of which would nor- were no doubt unaware of this) could Unten,RichtigeDauernand Setzdie Segelzur
mally be better for high frequencies and have been produced with our simple Sonneand Wolffs Edgesand ForJill,as well
the other for low ones. At one point I equipment. as works by Ashley, David Behrman and
tested one of my ring-modulators in Ichiyanagi. The compositions we per-
comparison with the ring-modulator in formed most frequently were Cartridge
a VCS3, and found that the damping re- REPERTOIRE Music, Brown's Four Systems,Grosskopf's
quired to reduce or eliminate leakage Over the 7 years of the group's existence Looping,Stockhausen's Intensitdt,Spektren,
also affected the output sound, making we gave 245 performances of 100 works Spiral, Sternklang, Treffpunkt and
it blander. The rougher quality pro- by 28 composers; 41 of these were Verbindung, Wolff's Burdocks,Edgesand For
duced by my own ring-modulator could, Gentle Fire's collective compositions Jill, our Group CompositionsIII-VI and
if desired, be smoothed by passing it and pieces by members of the group. some of our own compositions.
through a filter, but the reverse was im- Thirty-two performances were recorded The composer whose work perhaps
possible with the blander sound pro- for radio and seven for television broad- most typifies the spirit of Gentle Fire is
duced by the one in the VCS3. We all casts (several works were recorded but Graham Hearn. His scores imposed no
had a love/hate relationship with the never performed live). Gentle Fire's first virtuosic elements, created a unique
VCS3 synthesizer. It was primarily played performances as a group were primarily sound world, left considerable interpre-
by Graham Hearn in several works; oth- group improvisations, but from 1969 we tive freedom and often required an al-
erwise, unlike some other groups (such concentrated mainly on compositions by most ritualistic approach to the perfor-

Davies, Gentle Fire 57

 ToLiz
GRAHAMHEARN:ARTMUSTBE FED(1972)
PIANOANDINSTRUMENTS

PIANO

I
I

9; i
1?'~~~~~~

inspace-time,
pedal;notation
(With overalltemposlow;quiet;legato)

ACCOMPANIMENT
WHATTODO DURATIONS
(CHANCE I)
MACHINE/DIE (CHANCE II)
MACHINE/DIE

1. Singlenote withone pianosound.

1. Simultaneously
2. Chord/cluster 2. Inbetweentwo consecutivepianosounds.
3. Melodicphrase 3. Exactlengthof pianophrase,beginningto end.
4. Noise 4. Somewhatlongerthanpianophrase.
5. Mixedbag 5. Longerthanone sound,shorterthanwholephrase.
6. Freereminiscence 6. Simultaneouslywithanotherplayer's
sound(excl.pianist).

Fig. 1. Graham Hearn, Art Must Be Fed, score of a composition for Gentle Fire, 1972. Hearn's compositions typified the spirit of Gentle
Fire. (? Graham Hearn)

mance (in, for example, Art Must beFed) Tudor and Mumma (later replaced by proach can only be successful when the
(Fig. 1). Takehisa Kosugi) performed their own situation is well matched to the sound
works as well as others specially commis- sources and allows them to shape and
GROUP COMPOSITIONS sioned by the Merce Cunningham Dance define the music.
AND OTHER SPECIALLY Company.Intermodulation's three collec- GroupCompositionI (1970) was scored
tive compositions were much less signifi- for tenor voice, cello, two VCS3 synthe-
COMPOSED WORKS cant for that group. AMM, and increas- sizers and other live electronics. The
As Simon Emmerson has pointed out ingly Musica Elettronica Viva, only VCS3s were used for detailed live elec-
[12], Gentle Fire was "a welcome excep- performed group improvisations.The Ca- tronic treatments, and the "patches"for
tion" in pioneering group compositions, nadian Electronic Ensemble (founded in these were carefully worked out and
which warranta more detailed discussion. 1971) created group compositions in written down. Comparable live elec-
Apart from a few compositions that in- which each member composed a separate tronic treatments of a freer nature were
volved additional performers, group com- section, while from 1978 in the U.S. works featured in GroupCompositionVI.
positions were the most substantialworks by the members of the League of Auto- GroupCompositionII (1971) was origi-
in our repertoire, and together form the matic Music Composers (the forerunner nally a sextet that included Richard
most representative encapsulation of the of The Hub) utilized networked micro- Orton; after he left the group we de-
group's music. We explored three differ- computers. cided to revise it as a quintet under the
ent approaches: detailed live electronic In an introduction to the GroupCompo- title GroupCompositionV (1972), for two
treatments, specially created instruments sitions that Robinson wrote for a broad- cellos, piano (interior), electronic organ
and a circularstructurein which each per- cast by the Westdeutscher Rundfunk in and live electronics. In practice this was
son composed the part for the next per- Cologne in 1973, he identified the simi- a fairly simple alteration, as in both ver-
son in the cycle. In comparison, the col- larities between pairs of these works, as sions each person in the group com-
laborative work of other live electronic discussed below, and analyzed our musi- posed a part for the next person in a
groups in that period largely focused on cal motivations: "the idea of making situ- predetermined circle; for the revision
other aspects. Stockhausen's group only ations which select sound from the en- one of the original six layers was omitted
performed his music; the Sonic Arts tire possible range without employing and only Hearn was affected: he took
Union and Composers Inside Electronics conscious decision before or during the over the part previously played by
concentrated on performing composi- performance is one which now seems to Orton. The individual parts were com-
tions by their individual members; Cage, be established with us" [13]. Such an ap- posed as separate layers, without any of

58 Davies, Gentle Fire

Procedure

Pianist
Repeatthephrasewithout changefortheentirelengthof theperformance.Ifyouarereminded of other
pieces,moods,stylesetc., youmaymakethememory audiblebyhumming, singingetc. for
whistling,
Thephrasemaybe transposed
shortperiods(cf.freereminiscence). fromoneperformance
a fraction to
another.

Accompaniment
Usetwodiceto decidewhatyoudoforaneventandwhenyoudo it. Perform eventswhenyoufeelready-
takeyour time-use silence.
Dynamics areequalto orsofterthanpianolevel;occasionally Youcanrelate
thepianocanbe drowned.
aresnatches
whatyouplayto thesoundsof thepianistandotherplayersifyouwish.Freereminiscences
to you-theymaybe sung,played,hummed
of musicfamiliar orwhistled.
Ifthe sum of the two numbersobtainedfromthe dice is odd, makea changeinthe soundwithrespectto
anyparameter(excl.duration). Otherwiseplaythe events straight.Ifthe two numbersobtainedare
that
identical, total of
number succeedingevents is to be performedbadly.Furtheridenticalnumbers
beforesucha seriesof eventsis completed
obtained maybe ignoredoraddedto thepreviousnumber(s).
Youmustdecidewhatconstitutes,relative a badlyperformed
to yourowncapabilities, event.Exaggeration
maybe required.Ensurethatthereis sufficientdistinctionbetweenthese andthe otherevents.

us knowing what the other layers would (Fig. 2), while the more substantial Group sound-processing system, as in Group
consist of, but taking them into consid- CompositionIV (GlastonburyFair) (1971) CompositionI, this time for modifying
eration. Two parts required tape loops; was given an additional dimension speech. (This homemade system is de-
one of these, created by Robinson, was through each performer adding one or scribed in the CD Contributors' Notes
more than 10 seconds in duration. It two instruments of his choice. A wooden section of this issue of LMJ.)
contained the sounds of a clock ticking base and central column supported cross Before the group came to an end we
and its alarm sounding, and ring-modu- beams from which were suspended three had begun to plan GroupCompositionVII,
lated whatever Jones played. Hearn's very large metal oven-like grills, each which was to have been a meal, per-
part for me consisted of five large dice- about 5 x 4 feet in size. The grills were formed/eaten on the stage. Among the
like wooden pentagons, five faces of specially constructed to Robinson's speci- ideas that offered live electronic possi-
which contained note values or rests, fications, and he designed and built the bilities were the insertion of two
plus a tape loop containing five differ- framework for them. On the fourth side "probes" (connected to a voltage-con-
ently filtered telephone rings that from we added a wooden crossbar from which trol input on a VCS3) into a cake, which
time to time I was to make briefly au- four large springs were suspended. On altered a complex sound on the synthe-
dible (one pentagon and one telephone each grill and on the crossbar we sizer as the size of the cake was reduced
ring was assigned to each of the players; mounted at least two different contact by successive slices and one probe
this created a slowly evolving rhythmic microphones; for each side of the gHong needed to be resited (originally carried
cycle of electronic transformations (pri- a good quality contact microphone (such out by us in the interval of an afternoon
marily filtering and ring-modulation) of as a stethoscope microphone or the rehearsal, using a large cheesecake); a
what was played by the musicians. My transducer from a vibration exciter) was "beer input" for other control voltages;
part for Robinson was a single page on combined with a cheap microphone or and interconnections to be switched
which the player followed a sequence of microphone insert that had a poor fre- whenever a knife and fork touched. A
instructions in the border surrounding a quency response, with only a middle or second project for a future group com-
graphic score, part of which was derived high frequency range. Simply by varying position would have involved a live elec-
from Furnival's Odegraphic. the levels on a mixer for each pair of mi- tronic part operated entirely on the mix-
Two further Group Compositions were crophones we were able to obtain sub- ing desk in a recording studio.
interrelated: GroupComposition III (1971) stantial filtering effects. Two further group compositions were
used only the quadraphonic gHong GroupCompositionVI (UnfixedParities) created. We worked on River Concert
"gong-tree"instrument as a sound source (1972) concentrated on an electronic (DartRiverEnvironment)as a project with

Davies, Gentle Fire 59

 5. Karlheinz Stockhausen, From the Seven Days/Aus
den sieben 7agen (Vienna: Universal Edition, 1970)
(score collection).
6. Tim Souster, "Intermodulation: a Short History,"
Contact 17 (Summer 1977) pp. 3-6.
7. Paul Griffiths, The Thames and Hudson
*.
Encyclopaedia of 20th Century Music (London/Nes
York:Thames & Hudson, 1986) p. 90 (reprinted in
1996 as Dictionary of 20th Century Music).

i 8. StuartJones, Graham Hearn and Hugh Davies,

"Gentle Fire," in Lucier, ed. [4] pp. 84-87 (scores
of Graham Hearn, Drencher;Stuart Jones, I eave to
I.ean To; Hugh Davies, Quintet).
'i 9.John Furnival, Ode,Ceolfrith Press 17-cm LP (PR
i 1 (included with exh. cat.) (1971).

10. Hugh Davies, "A Simple Ring-Modulator," Mu-

sics 6 (February-March 1976) pp. 3-5.

I 11. Simon Emmerson, "Live Electronic Music in

Britain: Three Case Studies," ContemporaryMusic
Review 6, No. 1, 179-195 (1991) (includes a list of
about half of the works in Gentle Fire's repertoire).
12. Enmmerson[11].
13. Michael Robinson, "Gentle Fire: the Group
Compositions," unpublished talk broadcast by
Westdeutscher Rundfunk, Cologne, 1973.
Fig. 2. Gentle Fire playing the gHong (Akademie der Kiinste, Berlin, 1972), here suspended 14. Richard Bernas is an orchestral conductor and
from a low ceiling rather than on its own stand; from left to right: Richard Bernas, Graham
pianist. I am a freelance composer, performer (of-
Hearn, Michael Robinson (back to camera), Stuart Jones, Hugh Davies. (Photo ? Petra ten solo), instrunment inventor and researcher.
Grosskopf) Patrick Harrex is active again as a composer and
violinist, having retired from his financial career.
Graham Hearn is a college lecturer injazz and con-
our students at the Dartington Summer vested interest as a composer in making temporary music and a freelance pianist (jazz and
School in 1972, in which each musician the group central to future composi- related music). Stuart Jones is a freelance com-
poser and performer, collaborator with visual artists
performed in response to one of several tions, and indeed the cooperative na-
producing linear and interactive work, head of New
tape loops selected randomly from re- ture of the group would have prevented Media Design at Central St. Martins College in Lon-
cordings we had made at different loca- any member from trying to do so. don. Richard Orton is a composer and university
lecturer (appointed Emeritus Reader after early re-
tions along the nearby River Dart. Piano I have long believed that the future of tirement in 1998), founder member of the York-
Concert(1973) involved several perform- electronic music would be in live perfor- based Composers Desktop Project and author of
ers operating inside a piano and with the algorithmic composition software Tabula
mance, with certain works produced on
Vigilans. Michael Robinson is a journalist working
live electronic treatments. tape (or digital storage) in a studio be- mostly in television current affairs.
cause they could not be created in real
time. It seems to me, however, that there
CONCLUSION was a lull in the development of live Discography
All creative organizations seem to have a electronic music after the early 1970s, Furnival, John. Ode, Ceolfrith Press 17-cnl CPR 1
(incl. with exh. cat.John Furnival) (1971).
natural life of around 7 years, after and the medium only began to revive a
which substantial renewal is needed if Gentle Fire. Earle Brown, Four Systems;John Cage,
decade later, with the introduction of Music for Amplified Toy Pianos and Music for Carillon
they are to continue. Gentle Fire man- new commercial devices such as digital Nos. 1-3 (performer: Graham Hearn); Christian
aged to evolve during the first 5 years of delays, harmonizers and vocoders (and, Wolff, Edges. Electrola LP 1C 065-02 469 and
Toshiba LP EAC-80295 (1974).
its existence, but a variety of factors, later on, samplers) as well as, in certain
mostly mentioned or implied above, areas, the early use of microcomputers. Gentle Fire. Group Composition IV (excerpt) "Live

caused the group's gradual demise. Af- Electronics," Contemporary Music Review 6, No. 1
Today, of course, live electronic tech- (cassette incl. with journal) (1991).
ter 1972 our earnings from concerts fell niques have become widespread in all
Orton, Richard. concertmusic 5, 17-cm LP included
sharply, and, due to the decreasing avail- types and styles of music. in book Approach to Music, Vol. 3 (Oxford, U.K.:
ability of money in the arts, invitations Oxford Univ. Press, 1971).
were less common. Hearn and I had al- References and Notes
Stockhausen, Karlheinz. Sternklang, Polydor LP
ready established the principal elements 1. Hugh Davies, Repertoire international des musiques 2612031 and DGG LP 2707 123 (2 LPs) (1976); re-
of our careers, but the three other mem- electroacoustiques/International Electronic Music Catalog issued on Stockhausen Gesamtausgabe CD 18A-B
(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1968); ElectronicMusic (2CDs) (1992) (with 16 other performers).
bers had not, and needed to explore dif- Reviewi2-3 (April-July 1967) (special double issue).
ferent potential sources of income [14].
The York members had started out in 2. In the festival at York University,I also appeared
in the Orton/Davies live electronic duo perfor- Manuscript received 6 February 2001.
the group while they were still students, mance of Cage's Electronic Music for Piano.
but skill in Gentle Fire's repertoire was
3. Hugh Davies, "Electronic Music: History and De- Since 1999, Hugh Davies has been a part-time
not an appropriate qualification for velopmenst," in John Vinton, ed., Dictionaryof Con- Researcherin Sonic Art at the Centrefor Elec-
more conventional musical activities at temporaryMusic (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1974) p.
215 (published in U.K. as Dictionary of 20th Century tronicArts, Middlesex University,London. His
the time. Rehearsals were often awkward Music (I.ondon: Thames & Hudson, 1974). researchesconcentrateon twentieth-centurymu-
to schedule, with two members (later sical instruments and electronicmusic, includ-
4. Alvin Lucier, "Gentle Fire," Source:Music of the
one) living in Yorkshire and the others Avant Garde 10, Alvin Lucier, special issue ed., ing chapters in 20 books and exhibition cata-
in London. Finally, none of us had a (1973) pp. 46-49 (score). logues and contributions to nine dictionaries.

60 I)avies, Gentle Fire