Playing with their food.Literally

This tickled my sousaphone, err, funnybone.


Playing with Their Food...
Thu Sep 12, 9:40 AM ET

VIENNA (Reuters) - They call it "music with taste."

Forget the cello, just listen to that cucumberophone. The land of Mozart will be exporting its latest cultural product next week when the First Viennese Vegetable Orchestra goes on its nine-date debut European tour.

The orchestra, which consists of eight musicians, one sound technician and one cook, plays vegetable-based instruments they make themselves.

"We believe that we can produce sound that cannot be easily produced by other instruments. You can hear the difference, it sometimes sounds like animals, sometimes just abstract sounds," the band says in its homepage ( www.gemueseorchester.org).

It takes the band about half an hour to make a carrot flute, and under 15 minutes to make a cucumberophone, which has a pepper bell and cucumber tubing. Other instruments include celeriac bongos, eggplant cymbals and pumpkin drums.

The sounds are amplified using a variety of microphones.

At the end of a performance, which can include free jazz, experimental music, or the Radetzky March by Austrian Johann Strauss, the stage is cleared and a cook uses the instruments to prepare a soup for both audience and musicians.

"The audience has the possibility of once again enjoying what they just heard," the band adds. "We employ a real chef for the preparation of the soup so it is indeed tasty and very special."

Their mothers obviously never told them not to play with their food.