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The Sounds of Paper

--By Jeremy Caplan

Composer Tan Dun grew up in China's rural Hunan province. His family was so poor that when Dun wanted to play music, he had to make his own instruments from paper. He cut small, thin strips that he would wave in the wind for a whispery sound. He sang through thin sheets of paper to make a humming noise. And he folded thick paper over a box to make a little drum.

"I like using instruments from nature," says Dun, who moved to New York City in 1985 to study music. "We use so many electronic things that, sometimes, we lose our connection to natural sounds."

Now, Dun has composed an orchestral piece using new versions of the paper instruments he made as a child. On October 16, the Los Angeles Philharmonic played Dun's composition, called Inventions for Paper Instruments and Orchestra. It was the first performance in the brand-new Walt Disney Concert Hall, which Disney's widow, Lillian, helped pay for.

WHISTLES, WHACKS AND A GIANT WHOOSH

During the performance of Dun's composition, audience members join in the music making. At the conductor's signal, they turn the pages of their programs to make a giant whoosh. The musicians join in by shaking their sheet music. Dun had to draw pictures to show them how to use the sheets of music in a special way. Traditional musical notes could not describe the whistles, whacks and other sounds Dun had imagined.

Dun loves experimenting. He wrote a symphony that is played by dripping and splashing water from bowls. And he has composed music performed with ceramic cups and teapots. In 2001, some of Dun's invented instruments were used for the music in the film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Dun won an Oscar for that movie's music.

"Everything we see can turn into music," he told TFK. "Kids can see that what they use every day for wrapping, packing and reading can make beautiful sounds."

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