Brazilian musician Hermeto Pascoal is  famous for making music with unconventional objects. (Miles Davis called  him “the most impressive musician in the world.” ) Here’s Pascoals astonishing Musica de Lagoa, made in a lagoon…the lagoon made into a instrument…

According to his bio, Pascoal is self-taught:

“Fascinated by the sounds of nature since he was a little boy, from a pumpkin mammon pipe he made a fife with which he used to play for the birds. He liked to spend hours in the lake playing sounds with the water, and also to pick every piece of scrap metal in his grandfather’s blacksmith shop to hang them in a rope to take sound of them. When he reached the age of 7-8 years old, he decided to try his father’s 8-bass accordion, and never stopped.”

Of course, it got us thinking about making our own music, somehow, and then we opened up a favorite book (that’s worth a post unto itself) to this:

“Where do we go to listen to the music that has not yet been heard? There is a place in our body to which we can turn and listen. If we go in there and become quiet, we can start to bring the music up.” -Stephen Nachmanovitch, Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art

Our friend David Saltman calls that bibliomancy: when a book jumps into your hands with the PERFECT words for that very moment. Yikes!

You can download some of Pascoal’s music (with his blessing) here.

via BoingBoing

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3 replies on “hermeto pascoal: music via lagoon, bottles, flutes, imagination

  1. Years ago, while living in Brazil, I met Hermeto in the Curitiba airport and got his autograph. He included a musical notation that I need to have someone play for me. A unique genius in the world of music and sound…

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