Deep into January. I was preparing dinner, feeling as grey as the sky outside — we were supposed to have snow the next day. Then, in between the equally dreary news on the radio, something interesting caught my ears.

I heard Robert Siegel on All Things Considered interviewing the director of a movie called “Oka!,”  about a group of Bayaka pygmies who live in the Central African Republic. Interesting enough.

Then he said the pygmies produce “stunning music – (with) their voices, and their use of virtually everything around them, trees, even the water in the stream, as musical instruments.”  I was hooked.

For background, the director explained that the Bayaka, a forest people, are among the most ancient people on earth, being related to the San bushmen and the original inhabitants of Africa, and they remain hunter-gatherers. The word “oka” means listen in their language, Aka. The children begin singing and dancing with the group when they are two years old.

The soundbites he played awakened the armchair traveler in me, who took a YouTube break while dinner simmered. It was enchanting. I plan to buy a copy of the CD of the soundtrack, “Listen, Oka” when it is released in February. (The movie, unfortunately, received mixed reviews.)

What exactly does a river played like a drum sound like? Here’s a quick example:

Here are some Bayaka Women Yodelers — many wearing hats made from large leaves:

And a more formal introduction to the Bayaka culture:

Here are some beautiful recordings of songs with still illustrations (ethereal duet sung by two girls):

John Bertles, founder of BTT, with a hose horn (a garden hose and a tin can) Photo by John Maggiotto Studios.

This great band name also sounds like a wonderful way to use your skills, and earn some income. Bash the Trash is a group of 11 musicians with graduate degrees from conservatories and extensive training in both arts education and performance who “demonstrate the science of sound with musical instruments made from trash.” Through performance, story, and classes for children, they explore science and the environment through art.

Formed in 1988, the group now reaches 50,000 students a year in school programs on the East Coast and in large spaces including Wolftrap National Park for the Performing Arts, the New York Philharmonic’s Young People’s concerts, and Carnegie Hall, among others. This year the EPA invited them to teach kids to build musical instruments from trash and recycled materials and create an Earth Symphony which they performed on the National Mall on April 17.

Upper left: BTT ensemble and scenes from parades and performances with beats from homemade instruments.

BTT was founded by John Bertles, who studied clarinet in high school and jammed with a friend in their families’ basements. Unable to buy additional instruments but eager to add more variety to their arrangements, they expanded their sound by beating on plastic salad bowls and flat sheets of metal. During the process, Bertles learned that “it was easier to play a homemade instrument than a store-bought one.” As a Bennington College music major, he learned how to create non-traditional instruments from teacher Gunnar Schonbeck, who was also a composer and inventor.

During the 1980s, Bertles did it all: He played in rock bands while writing and performing music for circuses, theater, and street performances. In 1987, he also started looking for steady employment, and taught a well-received workshop in instrument-making to elementary school children.

Building on its success, he gave more workshops the next year and organized Bash the Trash, professional musicians who use homemade instruments as teaching tools. Young students learn how to reuse found materials (e.g., styrofoam, plastic bottles, fishing line) to make musical instruments, how to use rhyme and rhythm to produce rap, and the science behind how instruments work.  BTT has collaborated with ensembles which use traditional instruments — the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, the Canton Symphony Orchestra, and Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble — in family concerts for all ages. 

To learn more about Bash the Trash and upcoming performances, visit their website.  (On their site, BTT also shows easy ways to make instruments from trash.)

 
“Call any vegetable, and chances are good/the vegetable will respond to you.” – Frank Zappa

It’s audiences who respond to the Vienna Vegetable Orchestra and the call of their zucchini horns and carrot flutes. The 11 Austrian musicians known officially as Das erste Wiener Gemüseorchester (The First Vienna Vegetable Orchestra — like there might be another one somewhere?) perform original compositions on instruments made entirely of vegetables.

Instruments crafted from fresh vegetables.

Before every performance, the group shops local produce markets for the freshest eggplants, peppers, turnips and leeks — or whatever they respond to that day — to transform into music makers. Carrots, hollowed out, sound like an ocarina. Leeks are carefully dissected and reassembled into delicately tuned violins. Pumpkins and cabbages form the percussion section, and the marriage of a cucumber and a red bell pepper produces a cuke-o-phone.
 
The remnants of the instrument production are transformed into a soup by the group’s resident cook and served to the audience at the end of the concert. The orchestra uses about 90 pounds of raw materials for each performance, so they can feed attendees even at venues as large as European philharmonic halls, where they have played.

Cover of the “Onionoise” CD, available at Amazon.com (click on the image above to purchase).

Since its founding in 1998, the Vegetable Orchestra has produced three CDs — the latest is “Onionoise” — and played at festivals and on concert tours throughout Europe and Asia. In 2010, the group debuted in America, with a performance at the Indianapolis Museum of Art that was the subject of this report on the CBS Evening News.
 
And what kind of tasty music does the Vegetable Orchestra play? These are serious artists, with no musical boundaries. They fuse diverse music styles — contemporary music, beat-oriented House tracks, experimental Electronic, Free Jazz, Noise, Dub, Clicks’n'Cuts, according to the group’s website, with a nod to innovative artists such as Zappa — into a unique sonic stew. The sound of fresh instruments — and how the players and the audience respond to them — can push a given piece in an entirely new direction, even as it is being performed.
 
Sound samples and a list of upcoming tour dates can be found on the Vegetable Orchestra’s website. 

To see how you, too, can make music with carrots, apples, broccoli and other produce, check out this site.

Like others in the sustainable art movement, Donald Knaack scours trash heaps for tin cans, automobile parts, bottles, pots, scrap metal and wood. But what he creates from these discards is truly unique. Knaack, aka, The Junkman, creates music from these cast-offs.

Donald Knaack with some of his junk instruments.

Knaack came by his uncommon music by chance.  Conservatory-trained, he worked briefly with John Cage who first introduced him to music from found materials. Thirty-two years ago, as a percussionist for the Louisville (Kentucky) Orchestra, Knaack found himself in a junkyard looking for metal slabs to use to create sounds for a contemporary work that the orchestra was performing. As he tapped away on pieces of metal, Knaack was overwhelmed by the variety of sounds he could create. He soon discovered that he could make music on practically anything.

Eighteen years ago, Knaack left the world of symphonic music to began composing for and performing on recycled instruments exclusively when he only heard “junk instruments” in his head as he composed. Today his Vermont warehouse (garage) is full of objects that will produce thousands of sounds. Knack knows the sounds that each of them will make and what the music will sound like when they are blended together.

And the public appreciated his new music. Among other things, his first album, Junk Music, was nominated for a Grammy award; he composed two major scores for choreographer Twyla Tharp; and appeared on Late Night with Conan O’Brien and CBS Sunday Morning.  He also joined the Vans Warped Tour (with Ice T, Eminem, Blink 182 and others).

Donald Knaack's Junk Music Playstations set up at Stowe, Vermont.

In addition to composing and performing, The Junkman also brings educational programs around the world and into nearby Vermont Schools where he gets kids playing music on junk instruments and building Junk Music Playstations–sound sculptures made from materials found in recycle bins, storage sheds and landfills. These percussion-based musical sculptures are played by shaking, rubbing or striking the junk instruments. Once constructed, from 6 to 20 people play together in a “Junkjam.” With junk, says Knaack, you “feel the power of rhythm. It gets you hooked on music and once you get it you never forget it.” The Playstations are constructed for schools, festivals and museums.

On December 5, 2010, he performed a concert at the main station of the UN’s COP Climate Change Conference in Cancun, Mexico where he received the “Singing for the Planet” environmental award from the Federal Government of Mexico.

To learn more about Junk Music or a Residency Program, contact: Donald Knaack (phone) 802-236-0088, e-mail (junkman@junkmusic.org), or visit his Website: http://www.junkmusic.org/