Music
According to The Residents' lore, in 1937, N. Senada premiered his masterpiece, "Pollex Christi", which means either Big Toe of Christ or Big Thumb of Christ. This work mainly consisted of borrowed pieces from other composers, namely Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 and Carl Orff's Carmina Burana, among others. He also left large holes in the work so that the performers could insert music of their choosing, thus "becoming composers themselves". Senada justified his work with "house" analogies claiming that he didn't make the "bricks" but "cemented them together"; he wasn't the "architect", just the "builder".
Senada allegedly collaborated with The Residents on their pre-Santa Dog work, and then disappeared. He resurfaced in the mid-1970s, returning from an Arctic expedition and bearing a sealed bottle of pure Arctic air; this served as inspiration for the Eskimo project.
The Residents performed "Pollex Christi" as a tribute to Senada on what would have been his 90th birthday. The holes in the piece were filled with a variety of works, such as the television theme from Star Trek. The recording was distributed in two editions of 400 before being deleted.
Read more about this topic: N. Senada
Famous quotes containing the word music:
“People today are still living off the table scraps of the sixties. They are still being passed around—the music and the ideas.”
—Bob Dylan [Robert Allen Zimmerman] (b. 1941)
“I defied the machinery to make me its slave. Its incessant discords could not drown the music of my thoughts if I would let them fly high enough.”
—Lucy Larcom (1824–1893)
“I’d rather you shot at tin cans in the back yard, but I know you’ll go after birds. Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit ‘em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.... Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.”
—Harper Lee (b. 1926)