this is why it's the best coffee table book ever...

a couple of quotes from Harry Partch...

at no time are the players of my instruments to be unaware that they are onstage, in the act. There can be no humdrum playing of notes, in the bored belief that because they are "good" musicians their performance is ipso facto "masterly." When a player fails to take full advantage of his role in a visual or acting sense, he is muffing his part - in my terms - as thoroughly as if he bungled
every note in the score.

To John Cage: I believe in many things: in an intonation as just as I am capable of making it, in musical instruments on stage, dynamic in form, visually exciting. I believe in dramatic lighting, replete with gels, to enhance them; in musicians who are total constituents of the moment, irreplaceable, who may sing, shout, whistle, stamp their feet; in players who are in costume, perhaps half-naked, or with fantastic headpieces, but certainly in some visual form that will remove them from the limbo of the pedestrian.