Most fantastic exmple of ingenuity I've seen in ages
I am always thrilled by ingenuity. Indeed, the pseudonym I created for myself so many years ago was chosen partly due to a character who's one truly remarkable characteristic I admired was his ingenuity. Specifically in the artistic world I am astounded by those who don't feel constrained to the media to which their trade normally confines them. Groups like Stomp and artists like Janine Antoni who literally gnawed her most famous work from blocks of lard and chocolate amaze me in their shear ability to extract beauty from the utterly mundane.
A truly remarkable example of this was featured in a recent article in Discover magazine. A group called the Vienna Vegetable Orchestra (watch the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpfYt7vRHuY) is apparently touring around fashioning their entire ensemble from fruits and vegetables normally only featured in mom's recipe books. There are three truly wonderful features of this ensemble.
First is that the vegetables and fruits are fashioned fresh for every performance. No dried gord drums. No dried celery threads for strings. Every piece is purchased and fashioned shortly before the performance to create the best sound possible. Besides being very creative, it is a touch risky in that they gamble on the availability of the fresh materials for their performance. 'Yes, sir, we have no bananas' is a chilling tune to these musicians' ears. It is also risky in that unlike most musicians, even those like Stomp, they don't have the luxury of acquainting themselves with a specific instrument. The quality of their instruments depends on the availability of crisp carrots and celery, and firm pumpkins.
Second is the amazing quality of sound obtained from things I so crudly chop up daily for mindless, though health-conscious, consuption. The percussion instruments produce a wide variety of sounds that seem almost unconstrained compared to a modern orchestra with the sole exception of metallic sounds such as gongs, cymbals, etc. The wind instruments and reed instruments produce a sound that would rival instruments that took months to construct and cost several orders of magnitude more to buy. I was simply speechless.
Finally, after every performance, from what I am told, they create a wonderful vegetable soup from the heart and soul of their performance for distribution in the foyer after the concert. While a somewhat weaker cousin to the mandala, what it lacks in spiritual connection it more than makes up for with magnificent environmental flare. It brings a tear to my neo-hippy eyes.
My only complaint is that while they were able to produce a rather magnificent range of sound, the videos I saw seemed constrained heavily to quirky sounds such as kazooish carrot-pepper flutes. I can appreciate their desire to try something a little off-key, especially with their medium of choice, but I wonder what quality their instruments could achieve when performing well-known conventional music. Perhaps it's my techie urge to benchmark anything new with anything tried and true. Basically one or two pieces, just to say 'hey, look what we can reproduce with some assorted plant matter' before performing their own composed pieces.
Meep (the plum-struck)
A truly remarkable example of this was featured in a recent article in Discover magazine. A group called the Vienna Vegetable Orchestra (watch the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpfYt7vRHuY) is apparently touring around fashioning their entire ensemble from fruits and vegetables normally only featured in mom's recipe books. There are three truly wonderful features of this ensemble.
First is that the vegetables and fruits are fashioned fresh for every performance. No dried gord drums. No dried celery threads for strings. Every piece is purchased and fashioned shortly before the performance to create the best sound possible. Besides being very creative, it is a touch risky in that they gamble on the availability of the fresh materials for their performance. 'Yes, sir, we have no bananas' is a chilling tune to these musicians' ears. It is also risky in that unlike most musicians, even those like Stomp, they don't have the luxury of acquainting themselves with a specific instrument. The quality of their instruments depends on the availability of crisp carrots and celery, and firm pumpkins.
Second is the amazing quality of sound obtained from things I so crudly chop up daily for mindless, though health-conscious, consuption. The percussion instruments produce a wide variety of sounds that seem almost unconstrained compared to a modern orchestra with the sole exception of metallic sounds such as gongs, cymbals, etc. The wind instruments and reed instruments produce a sound that would rival instruments that took months to construct and cost several orders of magnitude more to buy. I was simply speechless.
Finally, after every performance, from what I am told, they create a wonderful vegetable soup from the heart and soul of their performance for distribution in the foyer after the concert. While a somewhat weaker cousin to the mandala, what it lacks in spiritual connection it more than makes up for with magnificent environmental flare. It brings a tear to my neo-hippy eyes.
My only complaint is that while they were able to produce a rather magnificent range of sound, the videos I saw seemed constrained heavily to quirky sounds such as kazooish carrot-pepper flutes. I can appreciate their desire to try something a little off-key, especially with their medium of choice, but I wonder what quality their instruments could achieve when performing well-known conventional music. Perhaps it's my techie urge to benchmark anything new with anything tried and true. Basically one or two pieces, just to say 'hey, look what we can reproduce with some assorted plant matter' before performing their own composed pieces.
Meep (the plum-struck)