Breakfast Orchestra
- Get a breakfast meal in front of you.
- Preferably at least 1 solid food and 1 drink
- Each item is a musical instrument
- Each bite, each drink and each sound is a note in a grand symphony
- Imagine that you are playing said symphony as you eat
- If you wish, try to make actual music with the food
- Share the results with the world.
Artist’s Statement
“If music be the food of love, play on.” -William Shakespeare
Music truly is everywhere, though we may not always notice it during the hustle of the day. This score gives the user the ability to notice music in the most unlikely of places, and forces them to think outside the mainstream idea of what defines an instrument, or even a symphony. Something I like to do whenever I’m standing around doing nothing by myself is play some songs I’ve listened to in my head. Sometimes when I do this I start to mimic the rhythm of certain instrumental parts on stuff I find around me: pencils, the walls, the floor, the zipper on my bag, a desk, etc. I find it to be pretty therapeutic, and it also allows me to branch off into my own original rhythms when I find good enough inspiration. Music allows you to escape into an ideal world of their favorite genre, so why shouldn’t you be able to experience that in the day to day grind? All it requires is the proper mindset and concentration, and if you are more of a physical actor than a visualizer, then you can tap or whistle or perform whatever other actions necessary to fully immerse yourself.
The inspiration behind this score came from some of the works from Yoko Ono and John Cage. Specifically in Ono’s Grapefruit, I noticed a lot of “musical” score that were organized like an orchestral piece as well as a lot of scores that required the user to visualize something. I was particularly fascinated by these types of scores, and being a fan of various music genres, I wondered if there was a way I could combine these scores with a twist. Then I thought of Cage’s more avant garde musical pieces that used atypical instruments while I was eating breakfast, and I realized the potential of food as music. I wanted to make sure that this score was more about the experience than the final result, because not all people have Julliard levels of musical talent, so I emphasized visualizing the piece without mentioning how good it should sound or what constraints there would be. That would only cause stress for the user, and this score is meant primarily to relax the mind.
As its current iteration stands, this is a solo effort, as each person will statistically imagine a different musical piece from the rest. This can come as an advantage, as it means the user is free to express how they interpret the imagined music without the stress of dealing with conflicting interpretations. There is no conductor commanding your moves, there are no arguing band mates at every measure, there is just your music and you. This lack of right and wrong should be the greatest appeal of this score, and as it gathers participants, it can strengthen their creative abilities and have them continue thinking of the music in day-to-day life. Perhaps then, will they will discover a newfound love for music that I and so many others before me have longed to share with the world.
Documentation
Personal:
3rd Party: