Morning,Idle

A piece for household use:

Morning, Idle

for leaky faucet, three china teacups, chopsticks, and whistling teapot

Fill the teapot, place on stove & set to boil.

Adjust the faucet to a steady, moderate, drip, possibly amplified by an inverted bowl — floating, perhaps — placed in the sink immediately below the faucet.

Pour water into the teacups so that each cup has a different pitch, arrange the cups before you from low to high.  (The water must be freshly poured or the cups will have a deadened ring).

Listening closely to the faucet, repeatedly strike the edge of the lowest-pitched teacup as precisely as possible between each drip.

Now alternate between the low and the middle cups, repeatedly,

then, repeatedly, between the low and the high

then, repeatedly, between the middle and the high.

Take a leisurely pause.

Now, doubling the speed, so that every second strike coincides with a drip, play the three cups in sequences, 

repeating first low then middle then high,

then repeating low then high then middle,

then repeating high then low then middle,

then repeating high then middle then low,

then repeating middle then high then low,

then repeating middle then low then high.

Take another leisurely pause.

Now, double the speed again, so that every fourth strike coincides with a drip,

repeating first low then middle then high,

then middle then low then high,

then low then high then middle,

then high then low then middle,

then high then middle then low,

then middle then high then low.

The piece ends when the teapot whistles.

With practice, adjust the amount of water in the pot and the number of repetitions to an optimally matched duration.  Experiment with versions in which the the strikes additionally accelerate to three or five times the original speed.  Other gray codes may be substituted for the sequences above. Experiment with versions with more than three cups or in which the cups are moved slightly or the chopsticks tilted into the cups so that the pitches are varied.  If the tempo of the drip is slow, additional strikes of the chopsticks against one another may be interpolated between the teacup strikes.

2.11.2008