[ notes for small orchestra ]

1. THE MASOCHISTIC THUMB PIANO
You need: 1 X medium-sized cactus (alternatively, 2 X small cactii), most preferrably ones with large, spiky needles. Apply contact-microphones to the base of the plant. Turn the amplifier to “max”. Start playing by pressing your hands as hard as possible towards the needles, move them so that you flip-flop them back and forth, you will make lovely spraining sounds, like the sound of a rotating bicycle wheel. Stop playing when you start to bleed. -Bandage, then repeat.

2. THE GARGLE-FLUTE
You need: 1 X plastic cup filled with water, 1 straw.
-Put the straw in your mouth (and the straw in the cup), then start blowing bubbles. Nice bubbly, gargly sounds will emerge. You can in-/decrease the speed of blowing, at your own fancy. This sounds best if you try to hum along simultaneously, as it will produce lovely overtone-like sounds.

3. THE VOICE
-Get that Argentinian bloke who used to be in Reynols as your vocalist. Let him stand enigmatically in the foreground, in suave suit’n’shades, spouting mysterious wordplay-rants about armies of headless chickens and alien encounters of the third kind. -He’ll be your enfant terrible, the provocateur, the mad genious, the visionary poet.

4. THE SPIROU
-Get your 8-year-old hyperactive nephew with ADHD to bounce up and down on a trampoline for as long as he wish (-don’t worry, he’ll be at it for hours-), remember to bring some cans of Coke or Red Bull, to boost his sugar levels if you plan to rehearse even longer intervals. The “-sproinnngg!”-sound will be great as an extra percussion-effect, and the uneven bounces will fit in nicely with your improvisational, “music by chance”-concept.

5. THE DISTRIBUTION
Press a limited run of cassette-only, lavishly decorated albums. (Get the vocalist to do magic marker art, or trust friends and family with the fun task to hand-stitch or quilt the record covers. Felt, or unusual materials like bubblewrap, will be your friends.)
Communicate with your fans through black-and-white, xeroxed fanzines and snailmail-only mailing lists.

6. THE MEDIA
-When interviewed, look as shifty and aloof as possible. Contradict yourself. Look uneasy. Claim that your influences are Harry Partch, Artaud and Skippy the Bush Kangaroo. Get tourettes. Never flirt.

7...YOU DONE NOW?
- Check!

(*this one for Miguel Tomasín)