The score of Arturas Bumšteinas‘ composition „Text Score“ (2018) for one or multiple poets-
composers-performers asks:
Construct various words from alphabetical names of musical notes and write a poem using
them:
a, as, ais, b, bes, bis, h, hes, his, c, ces, cis, d, des, dis, e, es, eis, f, fes, fis, g, ges, gis
Your poem is your score.
These names of musical notes are the construction blocks for English words and the list of
words is so far: a, abba, abed, ace, ach, ache, ad, add, added, age, ah, aha, ahead, aisha, as,
ash, ashes, babe, bacchae, bach, bad, bade, badge, bae, bag, baggage, baghdad, bas, base,
based, bash, be, beach, bead, beaded, bed, bee, bees, beech, beef, beg, cab, cabbage,
cabbage-head, cache, cad, cade, cafe, cage, casbah, cascade, case, cased, cash, cease, cha-
cha, chafe, chaff, cheese, chef, dab, dad, dada, dash, dashed, dead, deaf, dease, deash,
decade, decades, deceased, deed, Degas, disease, diseased, dish, each, ease, ebb, echea,
edge, egg, eggish, eh?, facade, face, fad, fade, faded, fag, fagged, feces, fed, fee, feed, fees,
fish, fishes, fished, g-d, gab, gaba, gaffa, gaffe, gag, gage, gas, gease, geese, geisha, had,
hades, hag, has, hash, he, head, headache, heed, his…
This list is not finite, many new words can be constructed.
During the festival a group of both amateur and professional singers-musicians are gathered
for several days of rehearsals to create each his/her own little poem and sing-play it
together.
Other compositions by Bumšteinas based on the same principle are “Cabbage-head” and
“Bad Geisha”.