[1] Their music freely crossed from orchestral to ethnic instruments, technology, and daily objects, melting sound production from devices associated with vastly different forms of sonic practices.
[6] The group members focused on the simultaneous creation and performance of sounds in real time, often incorporating chance actions and spontaneous responses to musical and nonmusical events in creating their "anti-music".
[5] Their music freely crossed from orchestral to ethnic instruments, technology, and daily objects, melting sound production from devices associated with vastly different forms of sonic practices.
Every week we discovered some new technique [or] method for playing a previously unthought-of ‘objet sonor,’ and argued endlessly about how to extend its use, and what relationships of sound structure could be created between each performer.
"[citation needed] The group name was proposed by Yasunao Tone, who had shifted from the study of literature to music, with a strong interest in Surrealism (notably on the creative principle of automatism).
His proposal Group Ongaku was inspired by Littérature (literature), a magazine founded in 1919 by Louis Aragon, Philippe Soupault and André Breton.
The name Group Ongaku asserted the same combination of antiphrasis and urgent supplantation, humiliation, and liberation with which Breton, Aragon and Soupault titled their magazine.
For Tone, asserting the deeply analogical relationship between Group Ongaku and the formative years of Surrealism did not mean a simple repetition of this historical gesture.
[12] This performance precedes John Cage's visit to Japan (1962) and from then on is recognized as a pioneering work in experimental music, paving the way for the Fluxus experiments that will follow.
[13] The event consisted of the performers eating a sumptuous dinner eaten before an audience, whose members had unwittingly purchased a 200-yen ticket for the privilege of watching them.
During the evening, several performances followed one another: Masunobu Yoshimura brushed his teeth for about 30 minutes, Shō Kazakura stood on a chair and pressed a hot iron to his chest as part of a "ritual to execute the will of the Marquis de Sade," Yasunao Tone and Group Ongaku gave a concert of experimental music, and Tatsumi Hijikata stripped naked and performed Butoh, among others.