# @gettymuseum on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/Dbd0eeNicT5
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/68643906-gettymuseum-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/ae999c9851.jpg
- **Posted:** 2026-07-31T17:38:51.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** Getty (@gettymuseum) — https://gondola.cc/gettymuseum

## Caption

It's #UncommonInstrumentAwarenessDay, so we have to ask: have you ever made music…with paper? 

In 1960, founding Fluxus member Benjamin Patterson conceived of the score, Paper Piece.

Readily available material—paper—was used to make music: shake, break, tear, crumple, rumple, bumple, rub, scrub, twist, poof, and pop!

Democratic in spirit and undeniably fun, Paper Piece would go on to become one of the most loved and performed Fluxus scores from the 1960s and ’70s.

Learn more about Patterson’s Paper Piece and more experimental scores at the link in our bio. 

🖼️: 
1. Performance of Benjamin Patterson’s Paper Piece at the Fluxus Festival, Hypokriterion Theater, Amsterdam, 1963, photographer unknown. Used by permission of Fondazione Bonotto.
2. Variations for Double Bass, 1961, Performed by the artist at Kleinen Sommerfest/Après John Cage, Galerie Parnass, Wuppertal, 1962, possibly by Rolf Jährling.The Museum of Modern Art. The Gilbert and Lila Silverman Fluxus Collection Gift. © Copyright Benjamin Patterson. Photo Credit: Digital Image © The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA / Art Resource, NY 
3. Printed score of Paper Piece in English, 1960, Benjamin Patterson. Getty Research Institute, Jean Brown Papers, 890164, box 39, folder 33. © The Estate of Benjamin Patterson.
4. Audio sampler of Benjamin Patterson’s Paper Piece, 1960, Benjamin Patterson. © The Estate of Benjamin Patterson. Score sampler developed by Michael Gallope and produced by Greg Albers.
5. Performance of Benjamin Patterson’s Paper Piece at the Fluxus Festival, Hypokriterion Theater, Amsterdam, 1963, photographer unknown. Used by permission of Fondazione Bonotto.
6. Excerpt of Paper Piece performed by Benjamin Patterson, Ben Vautier, Alison Knowles, Eric Andersen, Willem de Ridder, Bengt af Klintberg, Philip Corner, Dick Higgins, Emmett Williams, and Geoffrey Hendricks, in Malmö, Sweden, 1992, Benjamin Patterson. © The Estate of Benjamin Patterson.
7. Handwritten score of Paper Piece in English on paper, 1960, Benjamin Patterson. © The Estate of Benjamin Patterson.

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uncommoninstrumentawarenessday

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