The administration section of www.kwase-kwaza.org was working again for a while this morning and so I was able to load up some of the articles that I came across at the end of last week . One includes some tough talking by Desmond Tutu � he points that South Africa is a comparatively rich country and that other poorer countries have been able to mount a more coherent response to the AIDS crisis. I have also put up some very direct stuff from Nelson Mandela about the basic obligation to help people stay alive. Another article (which I haven�t been able to load) disputes whether the progress against the infection made by Uganda is really as significant as claimed � the academic author from the UK suggests that everyone needed a �success� and that this has influenced how the case of Uganda has been portrayed. The Ugandans have reacted sharply as you might expect.

I suppose its because the ramifications of the AIDS issue areso enormous that it generates such wide -ranging dramatic news. My aim is to put some of these stories on kwase-kwasa � I won�t be able to find them all but I want people to think that if they look at the news items they will find some material which will make them think.

I am experimenting with digitally processing an image and then reworking the resulting print � say with brush and water. On an inkjet printer the ink will move around if you wash it � and you can add other pigment as well. You can take quite big risks � if they go wrong then you just print another copy. A reworked image that has progressed can be scanned back in. I am wondering about printing images to sell as part of the kwase-kwaza project. The basic value-addingconditions are there � the technology to produce something which passes muster but which in material terms is very cheap. I need to do a bit more development work on this revenue stream but I think now is the time when people who have a small quantity of artistic talent (I passed O Level) can use the technology to develop interesting images from quite humble material. Like the CDs I expect this window of opportunity will be limited.

I did a fair amount of gardening yesterday and today (by my standards). There is only one kind of gardening operation that I can carry out reliably � cutting back � and I generally do this with a large handheld and potentially lethal electric device. I always use it with a circuit breaker � but that wont stop taking off two fingers or several pounds of flesh out of my thigh. But the machine gets through the foliage. Of course the ratio of time spent hacking to tidying up is way outside golden proportions.

On one front Fifths is mutating into a serial piece � maybe it already has done � and I am gradually extending the formal apparatus that I bring to it. There are some good hard questions to be asked about serialism � like �why bother when no one liked it much in the first place and most everyone has moved onto something else?�

One of the rationales for some kind of serial rule is to keep one slipping back into established patterns. As far as I can tell there isn�t a specific set of serial rules � there is a general rule about using all twelve notes before you repeat and another general rule about the order in which those notes appear. But the gap between the general rules and the specifics of writing any piece is quite wide. Using those general rules in some specific way neither guarantees that a piece is good or bad � it gives it an opportunity to be different. As far as I can tell Cage learned from Schoenberg that certain general rules of composition might help a piece to emerge as interesting and different. Cage experimented with different kinds of compositional rule as his career unfolded. Lamont Young plated some da-daist/conceptual jokes on the whole idea of rule following.

I have been listening to the earlier Miles CDs I have acquired in the last few days. Having made some astonishing recordings in 1959 Miles took his band to Europe in 1960 and early on in the series of concerts John Coltrane left the band. Miles got Sonny Stitt in alto and tenor to replace him and do more European shows. Coltrane had recommended Wayne Shorter but he was not available. The live CD covers this period � one Coltrane track and several by Stitt. They are all pretty good but in his autobiography Miles complains that SS couldn�t play the newer conceptions like So What � he didn�t eally �get� the new rules. Miles seems at this time to have been developing a need for different musical frameworks.

In 61 and 62 Miles played with various combinations of musicians but all the real excitement on the scene was with other groups � Ornette Coleman and Coltrane�s new quartet.

�Seven Steps to Heaven� � a studio album from early 1963 which I bought yesterday is partly problem and partly solution. Miles recorded three tracks in LA which are quite soporific. The album also includes three tracks recorded in New York with a new rhythm section - Ron Carter, Herbie Hancock and Tony Williams (who was only 17 at the is point). The difference in the pace and atmosphere between the two halves of this CD is extreme. Wayne Shorter was still not available (he had been recommended by Trane when he left Miles) and so Miles used George Coleman for over a year on tenor. This period includes three really important live albums. When Wayne Shorter finally arrived in 1965 and ESP gets made its time for another really big leap forward � and Miles reacts accordingly � with four other adventurous composers in the 5tet.

That new framework only lasts him for three or four years before he starts experimenting with new timbres and even more new ways of organising music.

I have recently got a double CD of Xenakis � mainly because I had previously got a book of his articles and interviews � and I hadn�t realised that he had been architect and worked with Le Corbusier. Xenakis describes his work in very mathematical terms � and the music sounds harsh, like Varese or Harrison Birtwhistle. A lot of it was written during the same period as the Miles� music I have just been discussing (some of which used to be regarded as equally off the wall.)

I suppose the target zone is �strange but not to strange� and the hypothesis is that working with formal and mathematical concepts will help achieve this.

Robin�s piece today (for which many thanks) points in another direction � you get can get to �strange but not too strange� via collaboration � exploring other peoples� �rules�. The rule was offered in the spirit of Lamont Young � as something which would be interpreted or ignored in a whole host of different ways.

I envy Mark being in Washington DC.