Fusion=Collaboration

This site is a joint effort between software consultant, Charles Monteiro and musician, Jon Raney. This is an open ended project devoted essentially towards documenting the results of collaboration – whatever the medium of the project (in the past it has been compositional studies and tune co-authorship). Of course our goal is to realize tangible results that will ultimately be of value to us and hopefully those visiting the site.

Two individuals can have completely different perspectives,strengths and weaknesses.  For example we have different musical tastes, musical abilities, computer skills and ultimately opinions on things.The pitfalls of collaboration are obvious. Who makes the leadership call on a direction something goes in and when is the product “ready”? We have run into this in the past but we would have to say the journey has definitely been interesting and there is something there beyond just a “pound of clay”.

And there are many things that people can agree on and  inspire each other with. There have been many documented occurrences of either of us pushing the other person towards a new goal simply with the responses we give one another. In the musical realm we have taken one chord progression and created several widely different but valid results. And they wouldn’t have been created without both of our input.

This latter point is important because from the creation point of view, a product in the music realm (e.g. a song, a musical concept, theory etc) is – at least initially – by nature inward looking, especially when the artist is responsible for all the means of production. You interact internally and externally, drawing upon your storehouse of musical experiences and performing on your chosen instrument.  It becomes a collaboration once it is shared with someone else. In today’s digital age the tools of production and the possibilities for interaction have increased tenfold. And your ability to have a feedback loop with the addition of tools changes the nature of composition.

At the risk of getting metaphysical, the act of creation is a contradiction. It is made of a tangible objects and things that can be perceived and manipulated but the decisions one makes, the molding process is somewhat mysterious and governed by other processes in the mind. Specifically what is interesting in collaboration is the “two minds” aspect it is generative, mutational even. It is from that point we begin the search and documentation.

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