Stories

21. Garden Piece-Lucy Lee-Tirrell. For one performer

My neighbour, Lucy Lee-Tirrell, is not a musician. She is an excellent chef and has a love of dogs. She has never heard of the Fluxus movement. She is not prone to crazy moments.

This week she knocked on my door. It was the day of the American Presidential Election result. She asked if anyone had ever done this before? She had rushed over to tell me, in the middle of her house painting work, that she had imagined how a performance piece might be made of my garden. She particularly admires my garden.
Would it be possible, she asked, to superimpose music staves on a photograph of the flowers and take the flower heads to signify notes?
She had imagined a piece I might play in which the flowers in my garden might dictate the pitches I choose to play, nature determining the music. A beautiful thought, a lovely and surprising gift. Then she left to resume her painting.

I will create and play this piece.