April 12, 2007   In My Merry Oldsmobile sheet music coverHow did
I miss this? On Tuesday, students and faculty at the University
of Maine in Farmington premiered Philip Carlsen's "Car Life: A
Traffic Jam Session for Automobile Orchestra." (Enthusiastic
article here; skeptical article here.) The ensemble? Forty-five
cars spread across three parking lots, conducted with a big red
flag by Carlsen's fellow professor Steven Pane. Carlsen's
automotive orchestra used subtle and not-so-subtle harmonies,
cascading and alternating a cacophony of horns, radios, warning
beepers, revving engines, slamming car doors and human voices.
It was all part of an eight-page, detailed musical score that
had drivers keeping one hand on the wheel and the other on the
radio dial, ignition key or door handle, anxious to honk their
horn at the requisite times and blast WKTJ or WUMF at just the
right moment. Carlsen himself missed the spectacle, laid up with
a bad back, which just means that there'll have to be a repeat
performance. I ca