Changing the System

Changing the System is a 55 minute video documentary exploring the rehearsal process of a group of musicians preparing a performance of Christian Wolff’s open-scored composition of the same name from 1973. The documentary focuses on the particular way in which, in the rehearsal process of a piece of music, the distance between the score and actual performance is covered. Changing the System contributes 1. to the understanding of the dialogical relation between performance and composition (c.f. Bruce Ellis Benson, The Improvisation of Musical Dialogue, 2003), 2. to the understanding of the potential of documentary as an exploration of such practices and processes, 3. to the development of dialogical method in documentary filmmaking, which I have also theorised in my PhD dissertation (Seeing Connections, 2007). Dal Niente, who put on the concert series this performance was to be part of, are a leading organiser of concerts of avant-garde modern music in Britain. The video includes interviews with Michael Parsons, Dave Smith (University of Hertfordshire), Ian Mitchell (University of Exeter) and Dave Ryan (Anglia Ruskin University)—leading musicians in the field