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umm....riiiight.....

what the heck does it sound like? in the second measure youre laying your arms down across the kayboard to play it :p

you wouldnt. Its a joke piece. At least I certainly hope nobody would take that seriously and attempt a performance in earnest.

There are stories of parties where VIPs like Cowell, Cage, Partsch, etc would gather and collaborate on works where each one would write a few bars, and pass the staff paper to the left, whereas the next composer adds a few bars, etc. In music school we did the same thing at a few parties (very 'dead poet society'), only we'd include more typical college party indulgences as well. The resulting scores looked very similar to this one above. Its novelty, and a lot of fun, but thats all.

I'm no prude, and all for experimentation and pushing the envelope, but when this sort of "composition" (while fun) is mistaken for a legitamate gesture, I think that contributes to a VERY bad name for contemporary music.

now back to the fun.....

(Edit: I remember in that party piece we wrote, two performance indications that I added were "Bleed Profusely" and "Expose the most intimate part of your body you dare")

LOL. Yes, I gathered that much. I think it was after reading the instructions to "release the penguins" and "moon walk" that I figured that one out. My comment was also intended to be sarcastic. I guess that is one of the disadvantages of communicating through a computer - it can't express voice inflection.

Oh, I know, but there ARE people who DO take that seriously . In fact one of the music students in on our party piece totally took that seriously, and tried to stage a performance of it and everything. That same guy got totally into the Cage chance music thing, and wrote loads of pieces by rolling dice for notes, or holding blank staff paper up to the light and putting a note anywhere he saw an imperfection in the paper stock. Ridiculous. But he was serious, and thought he was writing brilliant music, and would force feed us recordings of it at parties, etc.

I think he was heinously misguided, but one must ask himself, what separates that misguided music student from John Cage's own chance music? (well, ignoring all of Cage's legitamate compositions for the purpose of the exercise :p )

must say I actually didn't look that closely at the directions. If I had, I think I might have realised that it was a joke. wow! glad that's sorted. Still... I think one day when I'm a billionaire (WHEN, not if!! ), I'll create an award for anyone who plays that piece exactly according to the directions indicated. Hmmmm... penguins... "Smile and wave boys, just smile and wave"

You guys will just have to remind me 15 years from now (or so) about this idea...

You can keep your money, geqo. How would someone play the 24-note chord at the end of the first line?

Behold... the wonders of genetic engineering.

I've seen orchestral reductions that looked like that. A composer asked me to make a recording of his own reduction of his new work so the soloist who was to premiere it could play along. The problem was, it wasn't a reduction. It looked like every note the orchestra plays was crammed onto the page.

I have an alternative for mrenaud's suggestion of how to play the 24-not chord at the end of the first line. It comes from a well known children's song...

♪Head, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes...♪ (and fingers i suppose)...

I can't believe nobody's mentioned the Allegro Largo!!!???

what in the WORLD has turned loose here? it looks as if someone threw up all over that thing and did a half-handed job of cleaning it up. it also looks like some wild animals running around up there or some optical illusion. *heh heh*