As far as I can remember, Music on a Budget began in 1992–93 as a collection of event scores, sketched as experiments for future realization. Behind the series were a few pieces that explored the inner sound of objects in transformation. Others became simple and humorous psychological thrillers about music, economy, sound, language, and those things that tend to get lost in translation.
I may have performed individual pieces in different places while the collection was developing, but its first presentation as a group under the title Music on a Budget took place on December 6, 1993, at Ruby Diamond Concert Hall in Tallahassee.
The first five pieces were Variations on a Shoestring, Sound Consumption, More for Less or Time Is Money, Pocket Change, and Cheaper Imitation: Stars and Stripes Forever… More. Two more—Like Music to My Ears and Theme on a Shoestring—were added later in 1993.
Variations on a Shoestring (1993)
EVENT SCORE
With an amplified pen, write the word VARIATION several times on a white shoelace, and change the sound electronically with each “variation.”
Subtropics Editions
NOTES AND REALIZATIONS
This is one of the Music on a Budget pieces for which I created a video version in 1995–96. Its narrative follows the classic musical notion of “theme and variations,” but from a different perspective. We see the word “variation” written several times on a shoelace, while its sound—heard from the pen’s perspective—is altered electronically with each variation.
Sound Consumption (1993)
EVENT SCORE
Amplify the sound of a burning match, or the sound of any object in transformation, so the sound we hear is heard from the object’s perspective.
Subtropics Editions
NOTES AND REALIZATIONS
Early on, I performed all of these pieces live. I would fasten a wooden match to an old phonograph cartridge connected to a battery-powered Marshall mini-amp. I would light the match, listen, and wait until the flame got close to the cartridge before blowing it out. Just as in the video, the sound would continue after the flame was extinguished, transformed into the crackling of cooling charcoal. In performance, the Music on a Budget pieces had a theatrical flavor, and the little amplifier was fantastic for listening closely to the burning match.
In 1996 I adapted Sound Consumption as a video work for In a Fishtank, a concert-length program created for the Interpretations Series at Merkin Hall in New York City. The program contained eleven works that would have lasted approximately ninety minutes if performed sequentially, but my allotted time was fifty minutes. I composed a timeline that allowed the pieces to overlap.
With a six-member ensemble performing within that structure, it became impossible to perform every piece live. I therefore created video adaptations of Sound Consumption and Variations on a Shoestring, freeing performers to participate in other simultaneous works. Although derived from the 1993 performance piece, I consider the video adaptation a work in its own right.
In 2004, Justin MacDonnell, then artistic director of the Miami Performing Arts Center, asked me to create another version of Sound Consumption that would bring out resonances contained within the recorded sound of the match. I amplified very narrow portions of the frequency spectrum at several prominent points, revealing a resonant sonority that accompanies the sound of the match as it burns. This version exists as a separate realization, although it is not the version I generally present or distribute.
Sound Consumption (1996), video realization of the 1993 event score.
More for Less or Time Is Money (1993)
EVENT SCORE
Collect a few loose coins from the audience and figure out how to give them the most music for their money.
Subtropics Editions
NOTES AND REALIZATIONS
In a situation where any number of musicians are available, this piece was created as an excuse to acquire the coins needed to perform Pocket Change. These were the instructions I devised:
- Tell the audience the next piece isn’t included in the price of admission, and collect only loose change from those who volunteer it.
- Count the coins.
- Hire members of the audience or available musicians at minimum wage to be part of the orchestra or choir.
- Devise a formula that accounts for the number of musicians at the assigned rate and gives you a result in “seconds.”
- Make that the exact duration of a piece in which, at your signal, the people you hired perform the most notes, using the widest range of pitches and timbral changes, as loudly as possible.
Subtropics Editions
More for Less or Time Is Money — a second-and-a-half performance at the Subtropics 15 Marathon in 2003, featuring an extraordinary one-time ensemble: Pip Pyle (Gong, Hatfield and the North, National Health, Absolute Zero); Chris Cutler (Henry Cow, Art Bears, News from Babel, Pere Ubu); Enrique Jardines and Aislinn Quinn (Absolute Zero); Wojt3k Kucharczyk (Molr Drammaz); and Gustavo Matamoros, conducting. Space 742, Little Havana, Miami.
Pocket Change (1993)
EVENT SCORE
Spin a few coins of different denominations on an amplified surface. The piece ends when the last coin stops spinning.
Subtropics Editions
Photo by Juan Cabrera
Cheaper Imitation: Stars and Stripes Forever… More (1993)
EVENT SCORE
By electronic means, alter the pitch content of a recording of Stars and Stripes Forever.
Subtropics Editions
NOTE
The title nods to John Cage’s Cheap Imitation. My still cheaper imitation takes a recording of Sousa’s The Stars and Stripes Forever and alters its pitch content electronically.
Like Music to My Ears (1993)
EVENT SCORE
Ask the audience to write on a loose piece of paper something that sounds like music to their ears. Ask them to spontaneously take turns, on their own, reading what they wrote out loud.
Subtropics Editions
Theme on a Shoestring (1993)
EVENT SCORE
After performing Variations on a Shoestring, auction the shoelace to the person with the most coins.
Subtropics Editions
NOTE
This became another way to collect loose coins for Pocket Change.
Like Fluxus works, the pieces in Music on a Budget can be realized in a variety of ways and media. I first performed them as a group using a minimum of resources, tools, and materials, including a phono cartridge, a contact microphone, a 9-volt battery-powered Marshall mini-amp, wooden matches, shoelaces, pens, a portable cassette player, a pitch-processing guitar pedal, and a music stand.
The fastening-screw phono cartridge I used at the time was given to me by Russell Frehling, who had received it from David Tudor after Tudor returned from a trip to Japan in the early 1980s.
These pieces have been performed and screened numerous times in Miami and elsewhere as part of concerts, performances, and lectures I have given as a guest artist.
Performance and Screening History
2023-05-27
Night of the Living Sound
Sound Consumption and Variations on a Shoestring
screenings
MUD Foundation, Miami, Florida
2005-12-07
Bring a Friend
Sound Consumption and Variations on a Shoestring
screenings
Roulette, New York City, New York
2005-10-02
Music on a Budget Event
Music On A Budget
performed by Gustavo Matamoros
CubaCultur, Münster, Germany
2005-10-01
MeX
Sound Consumption and Variations on a Shoestring
screenings
Kuenstlerhause, Dortmund, Germany
2004-11-13
Performance Art in Contemporary America
Music On A Budget
performed by Gustavo Matamoros
Polk Museum, Lakeland, Florida
2003-03-01
Subtropics 15 Marathon
More for Less or Time is Money
performed by Aislinn Quinn (Absolute Zero), keyboard; Chris Cutler (Henry Cow, Art Bears, News from Babel, Pere Ubu), drums; Gustavo Matamoros, conducting; Wojt3k Kucharczyk (Molr Drammaz), percussion; Enrique Jardines (Absolute Zero), electric bass; and Pip Pyle (National Health, Gong, Hatfield and the North, Absolute Zero), drums
Space 742, Little Havana, Florida
1998-03-28
Subtropics 10 Festival
Sound Consumption and Variations on a Shoestring
screenings
Ambrosino Gallery, Miami, Florida
1997-03-05
Bonk Festival
Music On A Budget
performed by Gustavo Matamoros
University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida
1996-12-05
Interpretations Series: In a Fishtank
Music On A Budget
world premiere screenings of Variations on a Shoestring and Sound Consumption, plus performance of the remaining pieces in the collection by Gustavo Matamoros, Thomas Buckner, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Davey Williams, Jan Williams and Anthony de Mare
Interpretations Series, Merkin Hall, New York City, New York
1995-04-29
Emit Series
Music On A Budget
performed by Gustavo Matamoros
Dali Museum, St. Petersburg, Florida
1994-09-09
Sound Portraits and Other Syntax Variations
Music On A Budget
performed by Gustavo Matamoros
Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center, Buffalo, New York
1994-09-02
Sound Portraits and Other Syntax Variations
Music On A Budget
performed by Gustavo Matamoros
The Music Gallery, Toronto, Canada
1994-04-13
Subtropics 6 Festival: Samuel Beckett and Music on a Budget
Music On A Budget
performed by Gustavo Matamoros
Centre Gallery, Miami, Florida
1994-02-26
Explorations in Music Series
Music On A Budget
performed by Gustavo Matamoros
Center for Contemporary Art, Santa Fe, New Mexico
1994-02-25
Outpost Experimental Music Series
Music On A Budget
performed by Gustavo Matamoros
Outpost Performance Space, Albuquerque, New Mexico
1993-12-06
The New World Music Ensemble: For Sun Ra
Music On A Budget, world premiere
performed by Gustavo Matamoros
Ruby Diamond Concert Hall, FSU, Tallahassee, Florida