Throughout my teens and twenties Beefheart was god. He worked rather well as a deity and for me substantially preferable to the one on offer in mainstream western culture.

In 1974 I listened to Trout Mask Replica for the first time and that was my moment of conversion. So much is so right about TMR. The apparent madness of the music is all meticulously planned and played, which brings a unique sincerity to the sound and valorises the unconventional. The lyrics demonstrate an understanding on behalf of the author of what actually is going on in rock and roll. The words are used like paint, but always seem to mean something powerful and to which you can relate. On the other hand the words very rarely actually really mean something in a literal sense, but, so often you feel a great empathy for the lyric line, you know exactly what he means, but you can’t say what it is.

His vocal was a montage of blues voices. He would be always picking from a palette of blues vocal expression I think he had learned from listening to so many blues and jazz records as a child.

The organised madness of the music works as a backdrop to this amazing vocal lyrical performance. The music mood swings continuously as it wrestles to understand the world.

That incomprehension of the world and fear of the consequences of comprehending the world, of then becoming part of the world, lies at the heart, I think of all the rebellion in popular youth music.

For me Trout Mask Replica is the greatest creation in popular music. It is unparalleled, unprecedented and yet totally authentic.

For years I was sort of interested in classical music but never really truly embracing it and understanding what it could do or be. I was still listening primarily to alternative and experimental music from the rock field and then dipping my ears into the world of classical from time to time. I think a lot of people do this, realising the rock/pop thing doesn’t usually have a lot of substance really we dip into classical, however we don’t have the necessary sensibility to hear what is going on very well so we give up and return to alternative rock/pop or what-have-you.

In these forays into classical music sometimes I’d encounter something that touched me. There were a few things that touched so much that I kept wanting to play and play them again. One of them is of course this recording of Schubert’s String Quintet in C Major by the Aeolian string quartet. It is the third movement which did it. I find it almost impossible to write why this Scherzo, Presto and Trio has had such an impression. It takes you somewhere previously undefined. This place is fragile but you want to stay and treasure it while you can.

I do have other versions of Schubert’s String Quintet in C Major in digital forms, but none appeals to me quite as much as this one by the Aeolian string quartet.

There wouldn’t be any profit in this for the people who donated money towards the commissioning of the music but I think they will enjoy having made the creation of something possible.

To illustrate with a hypothetical commission. The Internet service might contact Harrison Birtwistle and talk with him about possible things he might be thinking of creating at the moment. These would be smaller works, not an opera of course. Then at the website of the online service these possibilities would be displayed. People would be asked to vote on their favourite. Then the website would go on to ask for donations towards the creation of this music, its performance and recording as a complete package. There would be a minimum donation size I think, like €500 perhaps. It could be that the composer will start on the composition when 50% of the money has been gathered at the website. When it is finished then the recording would be made available at the website. Names of the donors would be listed at the download page.

Maybe this kind of thing is happening on the web already, I don’t know. Maybe there is nothing new about this idea.

I had this idea because I don’t think that there is any future in getting money by selling recordings. Although Peter Mandelson has announced forthcoming legislation in the UK to block persistent file-sharing offenders I don’t think this or other measures will make a great deal of difference. The problem for the music industry is that technology has made it easy for people to share music online and it is going to be very hard to stop them doing that.

People do want music and they want new music, so I think what is required is a new way of getting the musicians paid for their work. That’s why I’ve had my idea of group online commissioning.