A few years ago, Brian Eno began promoting the idea of generative music. This isn't what's meant here, although it's certainly an interesting idea.

Music is, perhaps too often, "built" rather than more organically "grown". People often start with an idea or a feeling, then "put together" a group of musicians, "get a set together", rehearse it, and start performing, aspiring to a recording contract and maximum recognition for what they're doing. This seems to be all about trying to pin things down, and many musicians and groups have been known to, in the process, somehow lose the original magic which made them worthy of recognition in the first place.

Not that people shouldn’t try to put bands together. There are so many wonderful bands, and in so many cases the groups of people involved have been through struggles and conflicts and difficult times, but the resulting gift to the world has somehow been worth it. But it's refreshing for us to be trying a different approach. This is a gradual process of nurturing something rather fragile which seems to be growing according to its own design, rather than trying to consciously construct something. This requires a lot more patience, but then we're not in a hurry.

COTD is five years old, and sometimes it sounds like a five-year old: Although it will sometimes do something really beautiful, it's often awkward, clumsy, ineloquent, lacking in confidence, all over the place. But a five year old child should not be rejected for these traits, it should be nurtured and allowed to grow into a fully-developed person. We’ve seen our music evolve considerably in these five years. There's noticeably less meandering; we seem to be able to "get somewhere" more quickly. The "group mind" has generally become more present as we've all attuned to each others' musical "voices".

We hope that it will continue to grow in interesting directions, become more mature and confident.

We've also grown in numbers. There were three of us to begin with. By July 2004 around twenty people had Droned more than once, and are all very welcome to come and Drone again. About half of those Drone fairly regularly, and there's a core group of about half of that. If you scroll through the chronology pages, you'll see some names appearing more than others, and a gradual evolution through time. This has just been a sort of natural growth process, emerging out of network of friends, trust and mutual respect. If you're interested in growing your own Drone-collective, here are some starting points.