The Laptop Orchestra

"You see," says the sceptic, stroking his beard, "one of the big problems I have with electronic music has to do with its insularity.  Not that that's the only problem I have with it, of course!"  He guffaws, compromising the integrity of the buttons on his tweed blazer.  "The music - if we are to call it such - is produced by an individual sitting at a computer, feverishly typing and blinking at a screen, without any possibility of interaction with others.  And surely, is not the interaction with other musicians one of the most compelling reasons we have to produce music in the first place?"

He's right, of course.  Music is, ultimately, a way of communicating.  And certainly, I can see how electronic music, thus construed, might be seen as inherently introspective, possibly ruling it out of being considered as music at all.  However, it doesn't have to be so.  Enter the Laptop Orchestra.  Electronic musicians all over the world are emerging from their dingy basements and coming together to improvise in jam sessions with fellow enthusiasts.  The only difference is that, instead of guitars and keyboards, their instrument is the computer.  Electronic music doesn't have to be insular after all.

Sam Aaron and I are currently talking about setting up a laptop orchestra in Cambridge.  This would be by no means limited to bespectacled, Star-Trek-merchandise-collecting ubernerds - the idea is that anybody who's capable of pressing buttons and executing simple commands can join in an impromptu, improvised electronic jam session.  More traditional musicians can even bring along their acoustic instruments and play along.  We use our computers for almost everything else: why not use them to make music together?  Watch this space.