Music can express something that cannot be expressed in any other way. Music can be an incredibly precise form of communication. Music fulfils most of my religious needs, the access to the transcendental, that addictive feeling of awe. Music can solve problems in a very practical way; it can cross borders and overcome obstacles. Music is a non-excluding part of personal identity. Music can be a universal language; music can be the common ground.

If I were able to explain these things properly with mere words, would I need music?

 

Music will be an important part of my journey. Music is everywhere, internally and externally, everything vibrates. Not only will I try to discover as much new music as possible. Not only will I try to use a mouth harp as a concrete method of communication. I will also specifically try to create a “global musical collaboration” (GMC), both on the road and over the internet.

 

I intend to start a chain-reaction by composing a short piece of music and passing it around to musicians in every corner of the world, whilst recording their responses to each other. As everyone will be able to contribute to this project over the internet, it could ultimately be described as a universal expression of humanity in musical form.

 

If life is a film, can this be the soundtrack?

 

The practical guidelines to follow will be the framework within which creativity and freedom can be found or created. But before you even think of participating, you have to read the plain English legal info. You will be bound by these terms when you submit a contribution.

 

It starts with my little piece. This is the only piece that will come into being of its own accord. (Though I am not claiming that this piece is somehow “special”; it is just an expression.) All other pieces will be responses to this one and to each other, branching out into a world of infinite possibilities. In the end, when we try mixing it all together to create a product suitable for a charity-release, we will hopefully find that many of the pieces transcend themselves by unintentionally communicating and fusing with other pieces they never originally were “in direct contact with”. Perhaps it is in this “void” music can be said to exist as a universal language?

 

There are two ways of developing the GMC. “Forward development” only extends forwards in time and never branches out into sideways, open-ended “threads”. One piece overlaps and follows another; one musician listens to and accompanies a recording of the previous musician before freely developing the music forward in time. This is what I will be recording on the road. “Sideway development” is what I hope the internet community will contribute to. A sideways branching piece will always respond to and accompany a “forward” piece or another “sideway” piece, extending out sideways, adding “meat to the bone”. I am also open for experimenting with a third version, “diagonal development”, where a sideway piece not only responds to and accompanies any other piece, but also develops it forward in time beyond the end of the piece being responded to. This could get quite complicated and confusing, but I won’t stop anyone from trying it.