About this Piece

The score for this work consists solely of performance instructions. The instruments to be used are amplified pods, cacti, and other plant materials, such as pod rattles from a poinciana tree, which Cage specifically mentions in the score. Other instruments are to be selected by the performers, using I-Ching chance operations. Cacti are played by plucking needles with toothpicks, amplifying their sounds via cartridge-like attachments, originally constructed by John D. Fullemann. Branches is essentially a series of variations of Cage’s Child of Tree, strung together on a string of silence, which precedes it in performance.

—Courtesy of Wise Music Classical