Near where I grew up nearly a million starlings roosted on the Runcorn-Widnes bridge. I must have watched them flocking at dusk dozens of times.

For a ‘flock’ of musicians playing a series of improvised phrases or prepared musical material that is repetitious. A leader of the flock must be nominated to begin with but this status can change, with agreement, throughout a single performance.

There are three important elements to flocking behaviour to be observed in the performance of this piece.

Direction/Heading

Players aim to be heading in the same direction as the leader of the flock at that time. In musical terms this involves following the relative register (high, medium or low relative to the players own instrument’s range), timbre and dynamics of the leader as far as possible.

Distance

Flocking birds do not end up on top of each other - they maintain a steady distance. Musically, performers should not aim to be playing the same phrases in unison. Whilst matching register, timbre and dynamics players should aim for a collectively consonant performance, finding harmonies through listening to their fellow players.

Turning

When the leader of a flock of birds changes direction, so the other birds do. A wave of movement passes through the flock.

Musically, when the musicians are playing a repeated phrase together in consonance the leader may choose to execute a ‘turn‘ – a change in the phrase being played The ensemble proceeds to follow this change of direction, moving through dissonance to consonance with the new phrase.

Notes on performance

The starting points of players may be determined in advance. It may be more interesting to start dissonantly and resolve to consonance for the first phrase.

The leader may have a series of prepared musical fragments, with the rest of the ensemble improvising.

Nov 07