I had never seen an orchestra perform before, our school district only had bands so no one played string instruments or anything. Immediately all I could watch was the way all the violin bows rose and fell in unison and the way the cello players' bows were all angled and all their hands moved in the same way at the same time, like choreography. I was also wishing I had my camera again because the colors of the wood of the cellos and bass(es?) were really vivid and beautiful under the lights. I couldn't really concentrate on the music much :p Except for the third piece, a girl came on stage to perform as a solo violinist in a really pretty gown and she was amazing at the violin. It was interesting to watch her, as she played her whole body was full of passion and vigor, but when she had a rest and waited for the rest of the band to do their part she looked incredibly bored and apathetic, it was funny.
Back to the bows (I hope that's what they're called), I wonder if a piece has ever been composed based solely on the movements the bows would make with no real regard to the notes played, a dance with instruments. That reminds of an e-mail I got through the design list serve, it took me a while to find it but look at this-
http://showcase.thebluebus.nl/pages/848/ambigram-music.html
Mk and now that you've looked at that awesomeness, I was also reminded of our music lecture on Monday which consisted of experimental composers from the 50s. A lot of the people in my class haaated the works. I kind of enjoyed him. Our professor showed us, or had us perform or something John Cage's 4'33". He has a blank score with times at which the performer should turn the page and instructions on how to 'switch movements'. For anyone who isn't familiar, during 4 minutes and 33 seconds the person on stage sits at an insturment but doesn't play anything, making the audience become the performers, and their rustling/whispering/whatever the performance. It reminded me of Duchamp's urinal piece, which kind of pissed me off when I first heard about. "How could that be called art?
But now I've come to appreciate these things, if you have the balls to present something like that and people take it as art, kudos to you.
I do think John Cage's work was more performance art though, when in front of an audience. Also, he wrote a composistion for Duchamp. The whole lecture showed me what a nice tie in there can be through all the branches of art.
skip to about 4:50 to see the performance.
Also while I was looking for that I stumbled upon Salvador Dali videos. He had the best moustache.
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