Sydney Opera House, 2:45PM
A lady is sitting across from me. Says she's from Melbourne. She's chatting with a friend who is apparently here for study, and funding it hard to "accept it as music." Speech On Nothing is running overtime so they're handing out programs. I wander over to the CD stand and buy Music For Airports.
Sonatas and Interludes: I don't really get a lot of it, but it has it's moments. The sound is pretty cool, like it's being played by a lot of different instruments. I can see the metal stuff clamped on the piano reflected in the lid.
While they're wheeling the piano off, the guy next to me makes a Cage joke about how he likes the sound of the piano scraping on the floor.
Improvisations: Completely incomprehensible. Percussionist doing odd things with a drum while a bassist noodles. Particularly memorable bits include: drummer rolling a marble on the drum, and then placing what looked like a wind up bird on it. I don't know what to say about the piece as a whole, but it was interesting it bits, like, "Hey, that would be a cool sample to put in my avant-pop song."
Music For Airports: The guitarist makes a little introduction, tells us to feel free to ignore the band. Nobody does, of course. Aside from a kid crying partway through 1/1, everything is calm. I've been listening to MFA while studying, because it's quiet, repetitive and not distracting. Now that I focus on it, it's actually very emotional.
Musicircus: I only walked around briefly. I saw: a shouting drummer, a baby, man spinning a lotto ball thingy, 3 toy pianos, some people playing with odd percussion, and a person in a rabbit suit that played noises following a small child. While it wasn't all pleasant to listen to, what I got from all of this is that hearing is an awesome sense. Hear hear.
The Composers: John Cage
