Like John Barber, James Redwood finds his music especially rewarding when it involves working closely with others, whether in educational, community or professional settings. For him the workshop room is an instrument, as he explains in conversation with Peter Wiegold.

JR: When I’m in a workshop with a new group of musicians, I build, as soon as I can, a matrix of possibilities of potential, skills and limitations. I think, all right, those guitarists over there can only do power chords. The drummer might only be able to play in 4/4; 3/4 would be a push. Those singers look terrified; I’ll have to give them plenty of time to get confident about something and not threaten them. If there’s some sort of reticence in the participants, I give them something that can be achieved immediately as a foundation: say, moving between A minor and F major chords, or a march rhythm – very simple – and then I let people gradually elaborate on these and reveal themselves.

Then you start to hear things: that guy can shred, fantastic; they’ve got jazz harmony, promising; the bass player is really struggling to play in time. There’s an auditing process going on, and it all goes into a sort of matrix. As we carry on working together, I use that information to create something, which is a combination of that matrix and what I’m bringing that day. If this was a project related to Stravinsky, then I would link it to Stravinsky. But often we just begin with two chords, and then I begin the process of development by asking them, as a group, what next, where shall we go?

PW: So, after the F major, if one person said go to E major, one to D minor, what would you do?

JR: Try out both of them and possibly use invisible voting – close your eyes and put your hand up if you like E major; if you like D minor. If it’s a tie and I felt strongly about it, I would decide, but it would be democracy-ish.

PW: Maybe Stravinsky would have superimposed them! So you don’t always have a strong desire yourself; you could be happy with either option?

JR: It depends on the context. Sometimes yes.