The Great Learning (Paragraph 7) by Cornelius Cardew, featuring Bird On A Wire
Cornelius Cardew's The Great Learning was originally composed for the Scratch Orchestra, an ensemble of non-trained musicians who interpreted verbal and graphic scores, and who were active from 1969-1974. Paragraph 7 from The Great Learning is a verbal score composed of 24 lines of text. Each line indicates a new word or phrase, and is repeated a different number of times and at different amplitude levels, as indicated in the score. Members of the choir choose a new pitch for each new line, always matching pitches that are already sounding in the room; they introduce a previously unheard pitch when no new pitch can be found or sung from the existing group of pitches.