Konnyek - Drum music 21 - my 119th album. ‘Konnyek’ - Hungarian for Tears, as Bartok's Duke Bluebeard repetedly replies to Judith, it is the name composer Marina Vesic and I chose for our Collaboration, for wich this Percussion suite, for large solo drum, was expressly created. This music then takes its name from that collaboration and not the other way around.

I feel though that this music stands on its own ,as a piece, and therfore it took the Rh catalogue number 447, and became the 21st Drum music disc - and my 119th DCM edition disc.

I have previously kept my Solo music - that is the Rh catalogued music - rigorously seperate and detatched from my collaborative works [which cannot have Rh numbers - those determining what wholly belongs to me]. The bluring here being, that when I created it for Serbian Pianist Marina Vesic, to electroniclly blend with her Piano line. I did like wise, to a preperation of hers, from this to create our first two works as ‘Konnyek.’ I then left it open as a challenge to others. German Flutist Markus Wenninger responded wih his album ‘Music in the wake of Konnyek’ [2020]. It is nontheless, a good and strong work in itself and may be enjoyed for itself, as I created it.

The piece has quite an afterlife. In the companion piece Double Up - Rh 557, I answered my own challenge, making this album a Double Album. Some years later, I created a textural variant Double Up B - Rh 574 as a distict work in itself - on an album of its own ‘Double UP’ - Album Dm 26 with ‘Performance Park Pale - Rh 582’ [a metal percussion work if it were anything] - together with yet a third textural version of Double Up - the C version - Rh 583. All whilst and in response to sorting the albums out for the British Library Edition. Clear as mud see the chart below

[] Album Dm 21 - Konnyek

Konnyek - Rh 447
Double up - Rh 557

[] Album ‘In The Wake of Konnyek by Markus Wenninger

[] Album Dm 26 - Double up B and C
Double up B - Rh 574
[Performance Park Pale - Rh 582]
Double Up C - Rh 587

“Oh dear, ‘Konnyek’ is very, very difficult - most beautifully so!!” - Markus Wenninger - German wind Genius, flute and reeds - Twitter 19. 8. 2020.

“This Beautiful Monster” - Markus Wenninger - Twitter 21. 8. 2020

In a reply to Markus I wrote - “On a very early album of mine 'Mechanical Clock music' - MCM 1 is the skeletal - mechanical structure for MCM 2. It was my early days and I was all for music - it seemed too good to waste. I stand by it today - it was a good decision. it is though unthinkable to save parts as long as Konnyek but for the special circumstance of asking Marina Vesic to complete it for work in our Duo [Konnyek] in absentia. That is seeding a musical question. It could be my challenge to others - as it was for Markus Wenninger. I thought it [Konnyek] was actually rather a good effort so I could save it with its own Rh catalogue number.”

As Rh numbers normally connote a completed work, so do I have a problem here in that it is not, complete that is,or is it - is it sufficient in itself ? If you look at Michael Tippett's Second Piano Sonata it is full of silences - of different kinds - if one reads the score - it even begins with a notated silence. This isn't notated but that thought of structural silence struck me hard. That being said I think it does stand alone as a work. It is even on our Konnyek discography as an option but it's Rh number makes it a work of mine. it can now also function as an open work, as a possible if symbolic challenge - as a puzzle to solve. That makes three Identities - Ouch !!”

Since then an RCM insider and I offered it as a challenge to the percussion class - with no takers.


The Outer Blue Album Group - Dm Inices

An early reorganization of my music research interests had defined my music into dedicated sets of Albums. This way things of a kin got heard together - as one type of album or another - by Genre - or Tranche as I styled them. In this case Dm, music for Drums of various kinds. By Convention Dm.

Beginning as a percussionist my first 7 albums are for Drums of various kinds, Drum music or Dm, my first area of research interest or Tranche. I soon realised there was a second area of percussion, as a generality over a specialism - percussion on anything other than Drums, Metal Percussion music, or MPm. The third of five is the Phase music, realised by tape looping and timing, Phm. The fourth, a genre of Electro Acoustic composition, Music for Strings, Electronics and Percussion, or MSEP. The last genre is Electronic music, Em, taking the longest processing detour from an original acoustic source.

Album numbers 96 to the End [that is to my last numbered album] - form my Fifth ‘Group’ - a 5th time division across my Genres, my Outer Blue Group. The End being what it will be, but I have no plans, at the time of writing, in August 2020, to number any further albums, the given End being 142. This all builds on the foundational 'Blue Cherry Group' [where I had introduced my 5 areas of research interest] and the big 'New Horizon Group' - [where I explored to see where these five genres were leading me]. There then seemed to be a ‘band of gold’ across my discography. My Golden Band Group, that mark a particularly successful time for me. The albums that follow that, 76 to the End, are a ‘Blue Horizon’ - after the phrase ‘blue sky research’ - the ‘Blue Horizon Group.’ For convenience, I divided this Huge area into the Inner and the Outer Blue. So my Fourth Group is the Inner Blue Group. Then a Fifth and last Group builds upon that - my outer Blue Horizon - or Outer Blue Group.

There are thirteen Dm albums in the Outer Blue Group: Dm 15 - Dm 27. The Dm Arkiv album ‘Sometime live’ is not numbered.

Albums Dm 15 - 17 continue to document my ‘W’ studio sessions for Drum - with the Complete W Dances - spread between the three. Together with album Dm 14 in the Previous Group they form an important set documenting my Dm work at that Studio - with Dancer Choreographer Joanna Geldard. in our Etuda collaboration. As Etuda we recorded two further albums - Percussion W and Intonation W.

These sessions were also important to me for three large Solo Drum sonatas - nos. 8, 9 & 10. Nos. 9 & 10 are on the albums in this Group. Confusingly, no 8 is in the previous group. Just logistics and chronology - it missed the cut. It is on album Dm 14. Years later I recorded there again, this time with my Ensemble D’juil - cellist David Dhonau and Concert Flautist Sara Minelli - becoming our album D’juil 25 ‘Trio in five Parts.’ So . . .

[] Album Dm 15 Sn for Solo Drum no. 9 - together with the first of the W Dances.

[] Album Dm 16 W Dances 8 - 14 - pieces for Joanna Geldard to experimentally dance to.

[] Album Dm 17 the Sn for Solo Drum no. 10 [of the 12] - together with the last of the W Dances.

Albums Dm 18 - 21 are sets of works with conceptual twists.

[] Album Dm 18 Zen Yen Zen is a set of Meditations for Drum and Wood Block - where the wood block is a particular stroke of the Drum - or did you imagine that.

[] Album Dm 19 Metrognomics - Three pieces where I make you think a metrognome goes out of phase with me - in live acoustic recordings.

[] Album Dm 20 Table music - a suite of pieces performed on the Leather skins of Books, on a table - in a hard resonant chapel room. Stretching a point I think to say it was drum music. It is MPm by the definition ‘Anything other than Drums. it is though percussion on akin - so what defines a drum ? Skin or resonation - this has both. I set out to re-imagine a drum - and that is why this is still Drum music.

[] Album Dm 21 Konnyek - is a Drum Part - I recorded for Serbian Pianist Marina Vesic to respond to, for our collaboration ‘Konnyek’ - I kept this part as music in itself - as an album for me. In 2020 German wind specialist Marcus Wenninger added a flute part to make the album ‘Music in the wake of Konnyek’ for our Wenninger Broadhurst Collaboration.


Drum music 22 to 25

Albums Dm 22 to 25 are a complex but important bunch with a frivolity here and there. Dm 22 and 24 are more conventional recordings but are very difficult multimovement pieces. Inventions that touch the limit of drumming possibility, in live acoustic performance. Inbetween them is another conceptual work Dm 23 Drum Mantra - with Maria Finch - that goes way beyond live human performance. Chronology is an awkward Mantra. Dm 25 ends the Drum Sonata series with an 11th and 12th Sn, reaching the Canonical 12th and closing the series.

[] Album Dm 22 Fifth inventions for Djembe - a fifth set, and a growlingly difficult multi movement progression - for my signature instrument - in a syntax of figuration.

[] Album Dm 23 Drum Mantra - a fantastic feature I made with fellow drummer Maria Finch for the rattle and hum of it. It fits here, at this point, for being at an edge with perception.

[] Album Dm 24 Sixth Inventions for Djembe. I have tried each time, in each set of inventions - to push ever further - till now I run along the edge of intelligibility. This is the last of this series - it isn’t possible to go any further along this course and say anything with it - I find a limit of perception. The Six sets of inventions for this instrument form the core of my Drum music - alongside the twelve Sonatas for Solo Drum.

[] Album Dm 25 Sonatas for Solo Drum nos. 11 and 12 - the Solo Drum Sonata was at the core of my Drum music since the very beginning. Now fittingly, at the end, are the last two. Unlike the Inventions for Djembe I didn’t pursue difficulty for its own sake. In them I pursued a performative ideal for the sake of music in itself - The Cannonical no. ‘12’ has brought them to an end.

[] Album Dm Arkiv Sometime live - a summation of live pieces.

Albums Dm 26 and 27 are as chalk and cheese.

[] Album Dm 26 Double Up a set of album length Studio pieces that blow the notion of Drumming music out of the water.

[] Album Dm 27 In an English Parish Church - live in that is. In a Church near me, I helped out at the Summer fete, by giving a performance in the Church. With a wonderful acoustic to play into and many noises off I close my numbered Dm Genre. What a journey it was.

Outer Blue Group - Dm []

DCM 096 Em 38 -- Blue Dark Marine
DCM 097 MSEP 22 -- Sn for Solo Vc 1, 2

[] DCM 098 Dm 15 -- Dm Sn no 9. 9 []

DCM 099 MSEP 23 -- Sn & St for S. Vc

[] DCM 100 Dm 16 -- W Dan. 8 -14 []

DCM 101 Em 39 -- Dodecette
DCM 102 MSEP 24 -- Luigi

[] DCM 103 Dm 17 -- Dm Sn no.10 []

DCM 104 MPm 12 -- Hamermusic
DCM 105 MSEP 25 -- Consort m. for Strings
DCM 106 MPm 13 -- 45’23 - Mp solo

[] DCM 107 Dm 18 -- Zen Yen Zen []
[] DCM 108 Dm 19 -- Metrognomics []

DCM 109 MSEP 26 -- Nabucco - Om
DCM 110 EM 40 -- Profusion
DCM 111 Em 41 -- Cant for P C
DCM 112 Phm 12 -- Past for wind gr.
DCM 113 Arkiv -- Arkiv
DCM 114 Em 42 -- Funeral Music
DCM 115 MSEP 27 -- TUOE [Sym 2]
DCM 116 MSEP 28 -- Sin Vit [Sym 3]
DCM 117 MSEP 29 -- Symphony 4

[] DCM 118 DM 20 -- Table music []
[] DCM 119 Dm 21 -- Konnyek []

DCM 120 MSEP 30 -- Codasolo

[] DCM 121 Dm 22 -- 5th Inv for Dj []
[] DCM 122 Dm 23 -- Drum Mantra []

DCM 123 MSEP 31 -- Symphony 5

[] DCM 124 Dm 24 -- 6th Inv for Dj []

DCM 125 MPm 14 -- Footfall A & B
DCM 126 MPm 15 -- Inv for Steel Casing
DCM 127 MPm 16 -- Imp in 4 and 3 Pts
DCM 128 MPm 17 -- Six Sns. for Metal P.
DCM 129 MPm 18 -- Inv for Industrial Unit
DCM 130 MPm 19 -- Now is N. t. T. f Dan
DCM 131 MPm 20 -- Parellelia
DCM 132 MSEP 32 -- Organum
DCM 133 MPm 21 -- Perfor in Plastic
DCM 134 Em 43 -- Geut - B Version
DCM 135 Em 44 -- Vib. Blue Light
DCM Ark Em Arkiv -- What nu. Added to

[] DCM 136 Dm 25 -- Sn for S. Dm 11 &12 []

DCM 137 MSEP 33 -- They Make Music

[] DCM 138 Dm 26 -- Double Up + Per PP []
[] DCM Ark Dm Arkiv -- Sometime Live []
[] DCM 139 Dm 27 -- In an English Pa Ch []

DCM 140 MPm 22 -- Quarlium
DCM 141 MSEP 34 -- A Little Less than K.
DCM 142 MSEP 35 -- Gregorious A & B
DCM 143 MSEP 36 -- Entangled A.B & C

The DCM album numbers list volumes in a [for the most part]
chronological edition - the ‘DCM Broadhurst Edition’ - Prepared for the British Library in 2020. The volumes or albums themselves were actually released as and when it was possible. The Edition though, was planed from the start to stand on the 'foundation Stone' of the Blue Cherry group.

The Rh catalogue, numbers my individual works in order of Completion.