I would like to explain the musicians' rules of engagement for those of you who are interested.

The musicians were instructed to bring portable instruments and to:

move from venue to venue reacting with the sounds you find there; you do not have to play and you do not have a time limit, you are not payed by the note so feel free to play sparsely or busily, you may play melodic, abstract, precomposed or unrelated material if you wish.

play solo; if another musicians starts playing you should stop, you don't have to leave immediately but you should stop and let them play. It is not about dialogue between musicians, it is one musicians reaction to something they are hearing.

you may also react to sounds you hear on route between the venues (car alarms, dripping drains, acoustic anomilies etc.) and if you meet other musicians on the street feel free to play together or show them something you have found.

Oklahoma cafe Gallery

This installation simply sampled, at random and replayed through 4 speakers, sounds taken from either the cafe or from musicians live input in the gallery. People played quiet, loud, thematic, random scratchy, melodic... whatever, it always seemed to return something interesting and challenging to the player. If they tried to "play it", it often refused to co-operate, but if they played half heartedly it might cruelly repeat something they had played in a loop for 2minutes. Each sound they made became very important, as did the silences or times to listen to what the machine was doing. Also sounds from long before might reappear, bringing one musician back in to play with another.

Chinese Arts Centre

Anthony Hall's fish - a beautifully simple piece that seemed perfectly suited to the idea. The sound of the fish navigating was amplified around the room and created a special atmosphere for audience and musicians alike. Not entirely musical but certainly interesting, it forced us to think from moment to moment, every time you got into a musical flow you had to check yourself and think "am I still hearing the fish or have I just gone off on my own?"

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My Goodniss Clothes shop

Vernon and Burns perform pieces (some are composed radio shows) that contain recordings old and new; from crackly victorian music hall cylenders to Glasgow street sounds, they also perform old songs and make live sounds so they were able to react to the musicians if they wanted to. However I asked them to resist the temptation to jam together and simply observe the reactions. That way the musicians were put in a situation akin to playing along with the radio. The audience were treated to a vaudevillian show with strange additions.

Some audience stayed in one venue for the whole event. They may have missed some interesting things, but they certainly seemed happy to watch 2 hours of interventions.

I didn't get to play with Vernon and Burns, but those who did found it as challenging as I hoped.