From Scratch are a New Zealand experimental music / performance group, best known for their large sculptural invented instruments (primarily percussion), original music and hocket-style rhythmic innovation. They have performed since 1974 with an ever-changing lineup, though principally led by Philip Dadson.
History
1970s
From Scratch was formed in Auckland, New Zealand, in 1974 by Philip Dadson, along with other founding members Bruce Barber, Gray Nichol and Geoff Chapple. The group emerged from the NZ Scratch Orchestra (formed in 1970, also by Dadson, as an offshoot of Cornelius Cardew's original London-based Scratch Orchestra). The new From Scratch group sought to explore a more structured and rhythm-based approach than was possible with the Scratch Orchestra, whose large-scale, largely improvised performances had "often degenerated into therapeutic free-for-alls".
From Scratch's first performance was part of the Wellington Sonic Circus (1974), a mini-festival of new music, sound and art organised by Jack Body. They performed from a series of works titled "VOM" (Variable Occasion Music"), a manifesto providing "a flexible framework for rhythm, procedure and instrumentation, the variables for which are suggested by influences from the context or occasion in which the music is to be played".
The VOM works laid the groundwork for subsequent 1970s From Scratch rhythm-based compositions, including "Out-In" (1976), "Drumwheel" (1977) and "Triad #1" (1978), which was scored for two pianos, one played via a long rosined line attached to its interior. This produced harmonically rich continuous drone textures, which were also to become a feature of From Scratch performances.
By 1978 the group had also begun to perform using initial versions of the racks of long, horizontally mounted end-struck plastic pipes which would become their trademark instrument. Multiple sets of these "plosive aerophones" were typically used, struck with rubber paddles. They were inspired partly by seeing a Solomon Islands group performing with bamboo tube instruments at the 1976 South Pacific Festival of the Arts in Rotorua. The From Scratch versions were constructed from PVC drain pipe, beginning the group's association with sculptural instruments invented from industrial materials.
Towards the end of the 1970s the group had begun to perform internationally, presenting works at the Third Biennale of Sydney, Australia in 1979.
1980–1986
By the beginning of the 1980s Bruce Barber and Gray Nichol had left the group, to be replaced by Don McGlashan and Wayne Laird. This incarnation of From Scratch developed and performed some of the group's most iconic works, all featuring the PVC pipe instruments, but supplemented with racks of other instruments to form one-person "percussion stations" with a range of sound sources. These included rototom drums, metal chimes, tuned-tongue bamboos and aluminium gongs.
Gung Ho 1,2,3D
Their first major work of this period was "Gung Ho 1,2,3D" (1980), named after the slogan of the workers' co-operative movement established in China by New Zealander Rewi Alley (who was the subject of a book by From Scratch member Geoff Chapple). This slogan, meaning "work together", summarised From Scratch's commitment to egalitarian principles in music-making, expressed in an equal sharing of musical roles. Musically the piece explores a series of seven slowly evolving three-part polyrhythms, the first combining time signatures of length 3, 4, 5, the second 4, 5, 6, and so on up to 9, 10, 11 (with the fourth player taking on a drone role). This kind of polyrhythmic exploration had also featured in earlier works such as "Out In" and "Drumwheel", and would continue to be present in most later works by the group.
From Scratch previewed excerpts from "Gung Ho 1,2,3D" at the South Pacific Festival of the Arts in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea in June 1980. According to Dadson, "It was just the most magical context to be in, because there were like fifty groups from all the outlying provinces of PNG that came into Port Moresby for the festival... we cart out our PVC pipes, do a quick setup, flail into something out of Gung Ho. And this is in the absolute heat of the noonday sun, broad brimmed hats on. It was so hot that all the pipes changed pitch, while the drums went flaccid. It went down okay with the locals. They just thought we were hilarious".
The visual interest of their performances began to attract the attention of film-makers, and "Gung Ho 1,2,3D" was filmed for New Zealand television in 1981. The entire work was also later pressed for a Flying Nun LP in 1988, but this was never released because the covers were damaged during production.