Your Chance to be an Instant Composer

In 1964, a composer named Terry Riley sort-of composed a piece called "In C". He set up some rules for a group of musicians (up to 35 of them) to follow, but each musician has a lot of autonomy in what to play--largely in the key of C. Consequently, no two renditions of "In C" will ever be the same.

Now, you can do it, too. Darren Solomon has made a web page called "In B flat" in which several musicians have put up minimalist compositions in the key of B flat via YouTube videos. You, the conductor, can select as many videos as you want to play, you choose when they start, and you can pause them along the way. What comes out is a unique composition.

The wild thing about this work of creativity is the collaborators in the music (including you) have never met each other. Darren Solomon hasn't met them either. The not-wild thing about this is: increasingly, this is the way in which work or play is done in the world.

And, lest you think that I advocate a purely digital life, most of these musicians quite obviously exist, live, create, and thrive in the real world (I'm not sure about the one that uses the Nintendo DS as her instrument of choice.)

This reminds me of a story: A little over ten years ago, I bought The Sims -- the very first edition of the game for PC. I spent a year playing that game every free moment I had. At the same time, my wife, Marcy, was learning the fiddle. Near the end of that year, we were with some friends, and Marcy had the opportunity to pull out the fiddle and play some music with them. I watched as she pulled the bow over the strings and others strummed and picked guitars--everything vibrating together to make music for its own sake.

All I could play was The Sims.

I took the video game to McKays and dusted off a banjo that Marcy had given me for Christmas a few years back. (Of course, since I chose the banjo, people wish I would play video games.)

While technology allows us to do more than we've ever done before--collaborate, create, and communicate in ways unimagined 10 years ago--I think it's also important to keep it as a tool in the tool box. It's just as essential that we learn to collaborate with the people around us, to create with the tangible, to talk over the fence, and to listen to our neighbors.

NPR article
The In B Flat web page