Water Music

These people are having fun...beautifully.

Yet another exotic flavor of fun, via Meara Oreilly and Boing Boing




from Bernie DeKoven, funsmith

Opera Everywhere

When Improv Everywhere started doing its Spontaneous Musicals, they probably didn't know that the result would be something of the "meme" ilk. Today's evidence comes to us from the Presurfer, who brings us to the Art Nouveau Mercado Central, "said to be Europe's largest covered indoor market in Valencia, Spain," where "Members of Valencia's opera house, Palau de les Arts, disguised as shopkeepers were selling products at various stalls. Suddenly Verdi's La Traviata started playing over the loudspeakers, and watch what happened."

Opera en el Mercado from esoqueseconocecomolaopera on Vimeo.

Stay with it to the end. It might very well bring something tear-like to your eyes.

This stuff brings a deep happiness with it. Being a witness to the amazing vocal power of opera singers, the transformation of a shopping experience to one of shared surprise and delight, the playfulness of the singers who, despite being so far from the protection of the footlights and formality of the stage, found themselves intimately welcome, and adored - well, it restores one's own sense of the potential and power of playfulness, yes, no?

from Bernie DeKoven, funsmith

The Eigenharp - a youtube adventure into instruments of play

I began this particular journey with the Eigenharp from Eigenlabs - a jaw-droppingly amazingly futuristically one-man-bandly sort of instrument that you can play with and on and on.



Which led me to searching Youtube for more audio-visuals of this particular techno-amazement in action. Which, almost before I knew what I was doing, landed me on John Fowler, a guy making similarly amazing music with the humble, and significantly non-electronic "Jaw Harp."

Which made me think and rethink about the meaning of play, the vast toy-instrument continuum, and the deeper reaches of fun.


from Bernie DeKoven, funsmith

Balloon Bass and Box

First, you need two balloons: your basic round balloon, and your long skinny twistable balloon that magicians use. You blow up your basic round balloon and tie it closed. Then you tie one end of your long skinny twistable balloon to the place where you tied your basic round balloon. Then, you practice and practice and practice. And then you do this:

This kind of music is what I call inspirational. It inspires us to make our own instruments, or own music, to become the musicians we were when we were children and too young to care if we were "good enough" to play. Because play had nothing to do with being good enough, and everything to do with having, creating, being fun.

via Nothing to do with Arboarth

from Bernie DeKoven, funsmith

Bambooband

Go ahead, make your day.

This clip is called Bambooband - shot at Savo, in the Solomon Islands. As with anything I see on the web, I can't really tell how genuine anything is. But this feels dangerously honest: the exuberance, the inclusiveness, the playfulness. If you're not careful, this kind of video could make you believe that our lives are actually meant to be played out like this, together, with love, joy, harmony.

from Bernie DeKoven, funsmith