Global Musical Collaboration

mic_globe01The Global Musical Collaboration (GMC) is an experimental piece of music made up of many individual pieces that together form a whole, symbolising the “unity and diverisity” that is so desperately needed to be understood in the world. Dozens of musicans from around the world have contributed to this project which continues to be a work in progress.

Most of the pieces were recorded by myself on my journey, and indeed reflect my journey, but some pieces have been contributed through the internet. I welcome anyone to add more music to the project, I promise to use at least a little bit of each piece in the finished mix. My recordings were mostly done with deliberately basic technology – a portable recorder and an mp3-player for playback! My friend Glenn in Norway helped with some editing along the way to make the pieces fit together. In Australia I got a laptop to record with and to edit myself.

Let me explain how it works. The whole thing starts with my own piece of piano and mbira recorded in London and the other pieces flow out from this one. I asked Robert and Simon to accompany my piece (listening to my piece while recording suitable music to go with it) and at the end of my piece continue their own piece for about a minute into a free-flowing development part. There is no break between the accompaniment and the development, they are supposed to flow seemlessly into each other. I then took the development part of Robert and Simon’s piece and asked the next musician to accompany it and develop it. I call this type of file a Forward Development file because it moves forward in time beyond the end of the last piece. Only I can record FD files in order to keep the project under control.

A visualisation of the forward flow of FD files.

A visualisation of the forward flow of FD files.

The other type of recording is what I call Sideways Development, basically meaning an accompaniment of any FD file, without a development. Anyone can join the collaboration by recording an SD file and mailing it to me here: freewillmusic at gmail dot com.

I’ve named the files like this: Name of artist – number of contribution if the same artist records many files – name of artist and number of recording of the piece being accompanied – number of seconds after the beginning of the file being accompanied the current file begins – whether it’s an FD or SD file. Like this anyone can download all the files (when the recording phase is over, not yet), put the files correctly into sequence and make their own mix.

Listen to all the FD files in sequence! This a temporary mix just to give a rough idea of the recording process, it is by no means a finished product. This file contains the “errors” of unedited / out of tune audio, the inclusion of the harpsichord which is technically an SD file, and an overheated final export.

  1. Global Musical Collaboration - work in progress Musicians from around the world 20:18

The file above consists of the following elements mixed together (the links take you to each individual file if you want to use it as a base to record an accompaniment, though do not use those that say “needs reediting”):

Martin (piano and African finger piano – recorded in the UK)
Robert and Simon (guitars, vocals and synths – UK)
Magne Herrefoss (harding fiddle – needs reediting – Norway)
Girilal Baars (throat singing and doshpulur – mix of his FD and SD contributions – Sweden)
Jukka Tolonen (electric guitar – Finland)
Randi Birkeland (cello – Italy)
Dread Maxim Amar (vocals – Senegal)
Manjul (electric bass and kete drum – mix of his FD and SD contributions – Mali)
Aram Spruit (accoustic guitar – Mali)
Karim and Oumar (balaphones – needs reediting – Burkina Faso)
Mohammed Othman Faki (oudi and vocals – Tanzania)
Talya Eliav (piano and vocals – one FD and three SD files mixed – Israel)
Fadi Bitar (synth – FD and SD files mixed – Lebanon)
Firas Shakur (nai – Syria)
Erdal Kosar (baglama – Turkey)
Mahyar (santur – Iran)
Peter Nygaard (“the mosquito” – Pakistan)
Dorjee Tsering (vocals – India)
Mr. Kee (khong vong – Laos)
Eric Mandala (ngoni and vocals – New Zealand)
Jozef Kapustka (grand piano – Brazil)
Diogo Maia (accordion – Mexico)
Eloy (jarana and vocals – FD and SD files mixed – Mexico)

Here are some SD files, mixed with the FD files they are accompanying to put them into context:

Peter with Robert and Simon (“the mosquito” – somewhere in Africa)
Pablo with Girilal (guitar – Brazil)
Morten with Dread (electric piano – Norway)
Lucy with Martin (vocals – UK)
Les Vallones with Martin (choir – France)
Dudu with Jukka (harpsichord – Brazil)
Corinne with Martin (vocals – UK)
Vassily K with Girilal (vocals – Russia)

And finally, the SD files that currently only exist on their own and might not make much sense as such:

Steve (guitar – Belgium)
Lamine and Ardjouma (djembes – Burkina Faso)
Group Boufoulous 1 (Morocco)
Group Boufoulous 2
Group Boufoulous 3