Today, we're in North Adams, Massachusetts,
in a former textile mill that is now
the home to MASS MoCA, a museum where
you can see some of the most innovative new art being
made today.
They're currently playing host to an experimental music
festival that is organized by the group Bang On a Can.
Formed in 1987, this group has staged marathon concerts,
commissioned and recorded new works,
and held all sorts of amazing performances and events.
They also put on the Bang On a Can Summer Music Festival,
a utopian coming together of young composers and performers,
along with pioneers of experimental music.
We're sitting down with Julia Wolfe,
one of the organization's co-founders,
and Mark Stewart, one of the Bang On a Can All Stars.
Julia Wolfe is a composer whose music
has been performed all around the world,
drawing from folk, classical, and rock music,
and bringing an approach that is utterly modern.
She has written a major body of work
for strings, including "The Vermeer
Room," that was inspired by the Vermeer painting "A Girl
Asleep."
And she also worked with architecture firm Diller
Scofidio and Renfro to create "Traveling Music"
in Bordeaux, France, which filled
the city's streets with musicians walking and riding
in pedicabs.
Mark Stuart is a multi-instrumentalist, as well
as a singer and composer.
He has performed with all sorts of amazing musicians,
touring regularly with Paul Simon,
and is a member of Steve Reich and Musicians,
as well as the duo Polygraph Lounge.
He also teaches and runs his own workshop
for designing and playing new instruments.
Julia and Mark have collaborated to come up
with an assignment for you that embraces the ideals set forth
by Bang On a Can of creating and appreciating
adventurous new music.
So let's go see what they have in store for us.
Hi, That's Julia Wolf.
That's Mark Stewart.
And.
This.
Is.
Your.
Art.
Assignment.
When I'm on an airplane-- and you've heard me say this--
and I have an instrument with me, oftentimes, I'll sit down.
And you know, we're getting ready to go,
and you say hello to your neighbor.
And often, my neighbor will say, I
noticed you have a musical instrument.
Are you a musician?
Yes, I am.
Is that what you do for a living.
That's what I do for a living.
What kind of music do you play?
I say, well, I play three kinds of music.
And they say, oh, what three kinds?
And I say, well, I play a little bit of popular music,
quite a bit of semi popular music,
and an enormous amount of unpopular music.
And they usually just say, well, what's unpopular music?
And I say, all the music that you haven't heard.
And oftentimes, the experimental is simply
something that is brand new, that
is something that really hasn't been tried before.
It is truly a first time experiment.
But other times, experimental music
is often about-- it's like a really good chef.
It's about combining ingredients in a new way,
and something new happens.
I would say, being a member of Bang On a Can for as many years
as I have, that we endeavor to find both those-- the things
that are just popping right out of the egg for the first time,
but also so much of the serious work
being done in examining combinations and revisiting
beautiful sonorities from centuries ago,
but through a modern lens.
Listening is something that everyone does.
And so it's just a matter of well,
how do you take that listening in
and then turn something out, respond to what you're hearing?
That's the most fundamental thing
in creating music, is just listening and absorbing,
and then, as a creator, letting yourself respond.
Your assignment is to go through your day
and notice all the sounds around you as you go through your day.
Choose one of those sounds or a group of those sounds,
a room of those sounds, and that's going to be your band.
And once you've found your band, choose your instrument,
and join in.
Be a part of the band.
Document it in some way, send it in, or not.
So first off, I just want to say that I love these people.
Yeah.
I mean, I think we should seriously
consider having the "Art Assignment" be
only experimental musicians.
Yeah, I'm into that. are they a good bunch?
I think so.
These are the first two I've met, and I was very impressed.
I mean, they're not embarrassed to do anything.
Like, they live completely in front of everyone,
and are just completely unafraid.
It's absolutely refreshing.
So Mark proposed a title for this assignment.
He did.
It's very good.
It's really long.
So the title he proposed is "John Cage Meets Pete Seeger,
the World Is a Symphony, Want to Join In."
Great title.
Too long for YouTube.
Yeah.
Too long.
So I still think we should kind of unpack that title
and talk about those influences, though.
Composer John Cage said repeatedly
that everything we do is music.
We see this play out in his most famous work,
"4'33"," where a performer is instructed to produce no
intentional sounds for four minutes and 33 seconds--
and in his "Variations," intended for any number
of players and any sound producing means.
But the credo is also evidenced in Cage's life,
which was trained on listening closely
to the world around him.
He gave away his piano, rarely went to concerts,
and didn't listen to records.
He preferred the sounds of the traffic on Sixth Avenue.
You call it noise, Cage said.
I call it music.
And if Cage teaches us to listen,
it's Pete Seeger who inspires us to sing along.
Seeger was a master folk singer who wrote the standards
"If I Had a Hammer" and "Turn, Turn, Turn," and popularized
the civil rights anthem "We Shall Overcome."
Seeger's name may have been on the marquee,
but, in the folk music tradition,
the band wasn't complete without you, the audience.
He'd ask you to sing along.
And at the end, he'd clap for you too.
The two together?
Yeah, the world is a symphony.
And it's a hootenanny waiting to happen.
It's a singalong waiting to happen.
So you can go through and be annoyed by a lot of things,
especially in New York City-- car alarms, there's subways,
there are horns honking.
I've got major horn honking on my corner.
And if you turn around, you can have a lot of fun.
If we were botanists, we'd be talking about what's a weed?
A rose in a cornfield is a weed.
So what are your weeds?
You know, dandelions, man-- everyone's eating them now.
When I was a kid, they were not welcome.
So we want to go looking for sonic dandelions.
I love switch boxes.
They hum.
They hum a B flat that's a little sharp,
which for us is just right.
It always makes me want to sing a little.
[HUMMING]
Tubes are great.
You can just sing into a tube, and it'll do magical things
to the sound of your voice.
Try going--
[WHOOPING]
And you get a--
[SINGING NONSENSE SYLLABLES]
[WHOOPING]
So we got the hum.
We got the tube.
[WHOOPING INTO TUBE]
[SPRING NOISE]
I love nail files.
You will too.
[SPRING NOISE]
[WHISPERED SCATTING ALONG WITH SPRING NOISE]
And this nice washing machine has a particularly good rhythm.
I'm going to show you.
[THUDDING OF WASHING MACHINE]
[HUMMING]
Can we add the dryer?
[DRYER POUNDING]
[JULIA SINGING]
[PLAYING APPLIANCES RHYTHMICALLY]
[SINGING, PLAYING APPLIANCES PERCUSSIVELY]
Solo!
[JUST DRYER POUNDING]
[STOPS]
[WASHER THUDDING QUIETLY]
[STOPS]
It's clean.
You know, be a little mirthful.
[POP]
Yeah.
Crazy about the cork pop.
Water drop's tough.
[WATER DROP]
Ah.
That was great.
And don't neglect the elephant.
[TRUMPETS LIKE AN ELEPHANT]