The Sixth Sick Sheik's
Sixth Sick Sheep (sic)

Musical Performance

Tate Modern, London
2005

Aloud/Allowed Music Festival
New Haven, CT
2007

The sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick is reputed to be the most difficult tongue-twister in English. Using this tongue-twister may be a breach of copyright, at the very least. I’ve relinquished any claim of total authorship, but that's cool, I haven't told the players what to play either. All I’m doing is asking them to copy each other's sounds. The title copies the original tongue-twister's sound, but on paper, it gets it wrong. It may be guilty, then, of copywrong. But the point of a tongue-twister is to copy wrong. If it were easily copied right, it wouldn't be a tongue-twister. That little (sic) at the end means it was wrong to begin with and that being wrong is acceptable. This piece is about copying wrong and having that little (sic) at your disposal - not apologetically, but philosophically.

I might have called it 'toy boat.'