This session

A Blank Canvas Ensemble in Manchester
The Peer Hat, 14-16 Faraday St, Manchester M1 1BE
Saturday April 13th, 1pm - 4pm
Get in time - 13.00
Session start time: 13.30
Session end time: 15.30
Everyone is out of the room: at 4 pm
Session description: This session is described as an `open rehearsal`. It is not a formal concert.
Session content and times: these details will be added at a later date.
Fees: there are no subs for participants or audience for this event. Future events will be different.

Introduction

About

A Blank Canvas Ensemble in Manchester will play free ensemble improvisations in music using `System 5050 for improvisers`.
The ensemble may feature between 7-16 players. In the short term the numbers will be lower.

Proposition

The proposition is that System 50:50 is the go-to tool for developing free ensemble improvisations in more significant numbers, say over seven improvisers. System 50:50 for improvisers is disposed of with the need for external referential strategies. It is a tool for uncovering the strengths and limits of free improvisation, especially when the size of the ensemble is large.

It supports social music within an egalitarian framework.

The Curator

Phil Morton, the curator of the sessions, has been working on System 50:50 for improvisers for 20 years, with an intense research practice from 2017 to 2022.
This research has taken in a comprehensive brief that has included over 100 weekly sessions with experienced players, a one-off session with the London Improvisers Orchestra (24 players), and ad hoc trios.

What has happened so far

There have been 500 sessions plus featuring System 50:50 for improvisers featuring ensembles and groups from three to thirty.
Suppose you are interested in ensemble music, large ensemble music made without prior preparation. In that case, the evidence supports the idea that this offer works, it is rewarding, and it is fun.

Strengths and limits of System 50:50

There are two ways of looking and listening to System 50:50 for improvisers' output and development: to uncover the strengths and limits of free improvisation and to see that System 50:50 is a practice that can stand alone. It has its own unique and revolutionary strengths and limits for this moment in time. The latter will be the case until something new comes along.

For this Ensemble there will be no

• Conduction
• Compositions,
• Graphic scores
• Game strategies
• Contemporary composition techniques

About System 50:50 for improvisers

Please refer to the `about System 50:50` tab for more information on System 50:50 for improvisers. .

Interested?

• Please go to the registration tab displayed in this web page if you wish to add your name to the contact list, we will be in touch.
• There are no auditions for participants, there is no open door either - we have to discuss and negotiate membership or participation.
• Please register you interest, and then we will take it from there.

On a good night the sessions may looks like this, another night the room will be empty:
this lack of consistency is the challenge for this project .

Schedule

When? the schedule

Due to problems finding a venues, a lack of funding, it will be a struggle to set out a cohesive schedule.
Watch the website and social media for updates, here is the correct schedule for 2024

• 2024 01 13, a Saturday at the Peer Hat, 1pm - 4 pm.
• 2024 February no date, no venue
• 2024 March, no date, no venue.
• 2024 April 13th, a Saturday, at the Peer hat, 1pm - 4pm
• 2024 - no dates or venues for the rest of the year yet.

Criteria

Criteria for participation.

All levels of ability and experience are welcome to express an interest and to attend.
Please be aware of the following.

• You maybe asked to attend the first session as a witness, listener.
• You may be asked to sit out parts of the rehearsal if the nature and practice of this music is new to you.

If you are not on the contact list for the emails and newsletters please go to the registration tab and register your interest.

Venue

• The Peer Hat , 14-16 Faraday St, Manchester M1 1BE,
  
  • The Peer Hat event is in the basement, this involves steps.
  • For this project you are expected to be self-contained. No P.A. is supplied.
  • Parking. It is suggested you approach Faraday Street from Great Ancoats Street. There is no parking outside the venue of close. However there is parking within a resonable distance. You will normally have to pay for the right to park you car on private land.

About System 50:50

What is System 50:50?

a detailed summary is here: CLICK THIS LINK

What people say about system 50;50

System 50/50 works well - it’s a really good way to get a group to play effectively without egos , virtuosity , and shyness getting in the way. It is democratic, inclusive. coherent, leaderless, focused, there is room to think and time to listen, choices. It is less competitive more cooperative. Ends well. Simon Ross (Macclesfield), Blank Canvas  - Liverpool

On system 50:50 “Definitely something with LOADS of possibilities - the reaction in the car driving back was unbelievably positive - no one could remember playing in a large ensemble that was so "open". The openness allowed me to play quietly, which meant the dynamics were incredible for an improvising large ensemble.” - Charlie Collins Sheffield

It seems to me that any attempt to restrict what free improvisers play, presents a threat to the core nature of their music. Generally, 'To play or not play' is about as far as any predetermination can productively go, the player retaining (almost!) complete formal agency regarding when and what(s)he decides to play - Dan Goren Oxford Improvisers

Richard Harding Liverpool. ``Sometimes in free improv it is just not working but we carry on in the hope it will get better, in system 50:50 if it (free improv) is not working one can select tacet and stop playing`

Jon Aveyard, Lecturer UCLan University. `It gives me permission to do nothing`

Helen Conning, Liverpool. It is democratic

Maggie Nicols, I want to buy twelve clocks

Reviews and project development

• If the project moves forward it needs a team of four individual to curate the project. This may become an obstacle if four people cannot be recruited or found.

What happens next:

To express an interest:in the Blank Canvas Septet - Manchester:UK please complete form to be found in the registration tab
or Contact Phil Morton: philmorton@improvisersnetwork.co.uk :
UK: mobile 07999518582

Other sessions

Zoom - Online sessions: The creative alternative

The Hybrid solution to artistic and social isolation.
Online sessions offer the following

• An alternative date if you cannot attend in the flesh, in a room on the dates advertised.
• Increased frequency: online sessions offer more engagement with the practice without the obstacle of travel.
• Online sessions have limits and obstacles, they also offer new opportunities that in the flesh, in a rooms sessions cannot match.
• Increased social connections in a genre and practice for which geography is an obstacle.

In a room - in Manchester and Merseyside

Improvisers who are open to traveling as a response to weakness of a local scene, should consider doing just that:travel.
In the North West of England this project offers the chance to be in a room (and in zoom) with improvisers who are from the region.
At the time of writing (December 2023) sessions are planned for Liverpool. In fact these sessions atract more participants from Manchetser than they do locally!

Follow this link for details about sessions in Merseyside: CLICK HERE

Action

If you are interested in the on-line sessions please complete the form on the registration tab and add a comment in the `comments` box that you are interested in the zoom sessions.

registration

To express an interest:in the Blank Canvas ensemble - Manchester:UK please complete form to be found in the registration tab
or Contact Phil Morton: philmorton@improvisersnetwork.co.uk :

Top tip:

• In the field, event please enter Blank Canvas Ensemble - Manchester:
• in the field, location or region, please put Manchester
• If you are interested in the hybrid element: that is online on zoom as well as in a room: please mention this in the comments section

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