« sol­i­dAR­i­Ty » is a par­tic­i­pa­to­ry music project which can encom­pass musi­cal impro­vi­sa­tion, pub­lic per­for­mance, inter­ac­tion with pub­lic art and even polit­i­cal sol­i­dar­i­ty and action. 

« sol­i­dAR­i­Ty » as a for­mat requires rather sim­ple con­di­tions which can be appro­pri­at­ed by most to cre­ate their own musi­cal inter­ven­tions in pub­lic space. 

What is needed: 

1. A sculp­ture or struc­ture* of which the mate­ri­als it is made of res­onate when struck.

2. A group of peo­ple to par­tic­i­pate (2 or more): the par­tic­i­pants don’t need music train­ing but they should be able to fol­low instruc­tions and exe­cute (though not nec­es­sar­i­ly per­fect­ly) at least sim­ple rhyth­mic pat­terns and coordination. 

   1. Must have basic mobil­i­ty to stand or be close enough to the sculp­ture in question;

   2. Must be able to use an object to strike the sculp­ture softly;

   3. Rec­om­mend ages: 8+

3. One or two group lead­ers (depend­ing on the size of the group). The group leader ide­al­ly is a drum­mer or oth­er musi­cian who has a cer­tain facil­i­ty with rhyth­mic motif inven­tion and tex­tur­al explo­ration, group con­duct­ing and struc­tur­al improvisation. 

4. Soft mal­lets** (a sin­gle mal­let or a pair) per participant

HOW-TO:

The musi­cal struc­ture involves a basic “fol­low the leader” or call-and-response for­mat. In its most basic form, the group leader is respon­si­ble for invent­ing the rhyth­mic motifs that the group will then copy and play in uni­son. Depend­ing on the size of the group and the abil­i­ty of each par­tic­i­pant, the per­for­mance can break into sub-groups play­ing con­trast­ing mate­r­i­al, thus enrich­ing or com­plex­i­fy­ing the son­ic land­scape. Tex­ture and tone are rich para­me­ters to explore in addi­tion to rhythm alone. Each sculp­ture or struc­ture will offer its unique tim­bre to play with. 

Impro­vis­ing is, for some, the sim­plest way to go about this musi­cal inter­ven­tion. How­ev­er, some lead­ers may choose to pre­pare their motifs or ideas in advance. 

Essen­tial­ly, this for­mat can be used sim­ply for the joy of music-mak­ing and son­ic explo­ration and col­lec­tive cre­ation, or it can also stand as a pre­text or com­bined effort for a polit­i­cal action and expres­sion. I believe the form and propo­si­tion is sim­ple enough that it can also be adapt­ed to var­i­ous con­texts and needs.

*Dis­claimer: some sculp­tures exist­ing in pub­lic space may not actu­al­ly be of pub­lic own­er­ship. Inter­act at your own dis­cre­tion and be pre­pared to explain your activ­i­ty to pri­vate secu­ri­ty guards or law enforcement. 

**Using soft mal­lets pro­tects the struc­tures from scratch­ing or denting. 

My process: How I came to organ­ise « solidARiTy »

Over the years, I’ve made a habit of “hit­ting” on pret­ty objects to see how they sound. I’ve come to spon­ta­neous­ly explore a vari­ety of res­o­nant sculp­tures in this way, and this has remained a per­son­al enjoy­ment and curios­i­ty. In par­tic­u­lar, I have been enam­oured with the Riopelle Foun­tain “La Joute” for many years because of its impos­ing size and beau­ty, and to the par­tic­u­lar­ly var­ied and rich tim­bre from the bronze it is made of. I fan­ta­sized about a large scale com­po­si­tion util­is­ing live per­form­ers and roboti­cized mechan­ics for per­for­mance… but all these fan­tasies were rather out of my reach. I tried to imag­ine a sim­pler way to inter­act with the sculp­ture, but was caught in the weeds of want­i­ng to “com­pose” something. 

At the same time, I felt a ris­ing need to use music in the pub­lic space to express sol­i­dar­i­ty for the many atroc­i­ties of today. For me, I felt most out­raged about the geno­cide in Pales­tine and depor­ta­tions of migrants in the US and beyond, though there is no short­age of injus­tice and vio­lence in this world, and all strug­gles are interconnected. 

Sud­den­ly, the two needs and desires col­lid­ed. I could cre­ate music with the sculp­ture in the con­text of a spon­ta­neous polit­i­cal action. Using impro­vi­sa­tion for the music expres­sion was the eas­i­est way to get the idea off the ground and to get more peo­ple involved in an uncom­pli­cat­ed for­mat that required lit­tle to no prepa­ra­tion. In this way, I could also solic­it musi­cians and non-musi­cians, which was more per­ti­nent to the polit­i­cal and col­lec­tive inten­tion of the intervention. 

The polit­i­cal aspect of the work came down to wear­ing ban­ners we made at an ear­li­er date dur­ing per­for­mance so that passers-by would know what we were evok­ing, and to make it clear that we weren’t sim­ply mak­ing music for the joy of it (noth­ing wrong with that though!). Spon­ta­neous­ly, and through the chance of cir­cum­stance, voice, singing and chant­i­ng became a large part of this per­for­mance. As I had made it known pri­or that this was a pos­si­bil­i­ty, and as I knew the poten­tial of the peo­ple par­tic­i­pat­ing, I was not sur­prised that it hap­pened. How­ev­er, I was sur­prised at how it hap­pened, what tran­spired, and the emo­tion­al poten­cy of the moment. 

Cap­tur­ing it on video was inten­tion­al, as the goal was to wide­ly share the action online, beyond the live moment wit­nessed by passers­by and deeply shared by the participants.