| Category: | Musical composition |
| Dated: | 1975 |
| Instrumentation: | Percussion solo |
| Duration: | 8' |
| Premiere and performer(s): | March 8, 1975 |
| Dedicated to: | |
| Choreography: | Merce Cunningham: Solo (1975) |
| Published: | Edition Peters 66685 © 1975 by Henmar Press. |
| Manuscript: | Score (holograph, signed, in blue and red ink - 8 p. on 4 lv.) in New York Public Library. |
| Being on a tour in Arizona with the Cunningham Dance Company in 1975, one of dancers (Charles Moulton)
brought a dried cactus to Cage, placed it near his ear and plucked the spines of it. This inspired Cage to use cacti as musical
instruments in pieces like Child of Tree and Branches. The score consists solely of performance instructions on how to select 10 instruments, using I-Ching chance operations. All instruments should be made of plant materials, or be just the plant materials themselves (e.g. leaves from trees, branches etc.). One of the instruments should be a pod (rattle) from a poinciana tree, which grow in Mexico. "Using a stopwatch, the soloist improvises clarifying the time structure by means of the instruments. This improvisation is the performance". (From performance instructions). |