In 1974, when I was seven years old, I received a letter from America. On the envelope was written my name, preceded by the title "Master". This impressed me immensely; it was the first time that I was treated with such formal respect. The letter itself was even more impressing: It was beautifully typed in with a typing machine, the lines were all over the place, but in perfectly coherent order - from top to bottom, diagonal and backwards. It was a very funny letter and it also included a little ditty that I learned off by heart. The letter was signed: Uncle Bob.
In connection with the work of my artist friend, Alexander Polzin, and since I did it as a child myself, I recorded 23 friends on their first attempt at reading this ditty. One to six of these recordings are randomly selected from the pool of 23 recordings and are played, alongside my solo flute composition "Shir", from six loudspeakers that are placed around the room creating the funny effect of several different voices 'breaking their teeth' while trying to read this ditty:
A tutor who tooted the flute, Tried to tutor two tutors to toot. Said the two to the tutor, 'Is it harder to toot, or to tutor two tutors to toot?'
Performances
7 Jun 2009 Central European University Budapest Hungary
