On Sunday at 7 p.m. in the Slosberg Recital Hall, I attended by far the strangest concert of my entire life. The Gentlemen's Very (Very) High Art Society of South Waltham performed six pieces-only three of those pieces I would loosely refer to as music.

This statement is not as closed-minded as it seems. These three pieces were for the most part, improvised, not meant to sound perfect but rather transcend sound and evoke emotion.

The program listed the titles of the pieces but also provided what looked like poetry underneath three of the titles. For example, under the title of the piece "Treffpunkt" by Karlheinz Stockhausen, a few lines read, "everyone plays the same tone/ lead the tone wherever your thoughts/ lead you/ do not leave it, stay with it/ always return to the same place."

This was perplexing until I realized that the poems were, in fact, the scores. The musicians were not reading musical notes; they were improvising off of the poems, which seemed to dictate the character and movement of the pieces without giving any specific direction as to notes or rhythms.

The program was not only unconventional in that it included the scores of the pieces, but it also included the musicians' nicknames along with their full names and instruments. Some of the most enjoyable ones were "Daddy O," "Her Pinkness" and "Incredible Fulk." Featuring their comical and playful nicknames on the program may have aimed to inform the audience of the musicians' personalities and allowed for the audience to better enjoy the music.

The act of not knowing seemed to be the theme of the night. In this concert, it was hard to know anything for sure-especially what we, the audience, were supposed to be thinking and feeling. The improvised pieces were not beautiful in any regard and were certainly not enjoyable to listen to.

The first piece, "Abw?Srts (from Aus den sieben Tagen)," by Stockhausen began with banging on the piano in the most literal sense of the word, with plenty of squeaks from the instruments.

A member of the audience, Rebecca Bleich '16, commented in response to the general discomfort in listening to the off-key, random string of notes: "Humans like to hear nice things. We're engineered to like music that sounds good and reject music that sounds bad. Personally, my ears were offended." She is right. I was cringing in my seat for half of the concert while I tried to reconcile this noise with my notion of music.

After some research, I learned that the improvised pieces were part of a musical style known as "Intuitive Music," a concept first introduced by Stockhausen in 1968. This musical style, as suspected, does not use scores. Rather it uses verbal or graphic instructions in order to instruct the performers of what to play and how to play it. Surprisingly, after reading the "score" however, it was easy to see how the improvisation followed the directions. The musicians did seem to adhere to the music as best they could.

However, the pieces were not all of the Intuitive Music style, and the "Trickle-Down Tango" by Travis Alford was actually quite enjoyable. The piece featured a melodica, an instrument that looks like a mini piano and is attached to a white tube, through which the musician, Alford, or "Buzz Face," blew. The instrument sounded like a wind instrument, possibly like a clarinet. 

The piece was jazzy and upbeat and best of all, had a set tempo, key signature and a structure. This concert was definitely an ear-opener. The name of the group suggested a high-class concert featuring Bach or Vivaldi, but after listening to the music, the name seemed ironic. Then again, maybe it is not.

Maybe in a few centuries, Intuitive Music will be seen as just another style similar to Romantic or Baroque. Was the concert overall enjoyable to listen to? For the most part, no, it definitely was not. However, it did make me think about music in a whole new light.
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