# the genius of john cage



## michael5150 (May 24, 2015)

I wish to dedicate this thread to a composer who for a short period of time ceased to write music and during that periodgave us one of If not the most profound musical offerings of all time. It is not music and yet it is. It is silence.
John cage in listening to silence makes us feel emotion no less than when we listen to bach. He makes us yearn to hear not just audible music but sound as a definition. This is unique in music history. The silence is nothing and in being nothing it is not just something it is everything. It has no rules. It has no measurement. In a universe without matter the whole eternity of time would perform this work of john cage. He is in my opinion the most profound composer we have by simple dint of this one work alone. I don't know how he actually recorded this work in terms of music manuscript which is the traditional and therefore dated method but he delivered to us a universe without matter and this is profound beyond reckoning. He makes us yearn for sound. Truly profound.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

There is no such thing as an empty space or an empty time. There is always something to see, something to hear. In fact, try as we may to make a silence, we cannot.
~John Cage


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

michael5150 said:


> I wish to dedicate this thread to a composer who for a short period of time ceased to write music and during that periodgave us one of If not the most profound musical offerings of all time. It is not music and yet it is. It is silence.
> John cage in listening to silence makes us feel emotion no less than when we listen to bach. He makes us yearn to hear not just audible music but sound as a definition. This is unique in music history. The silence is nothing and in being nothing it is not just something it is everything. It has no rules. It has no measurement. In a universe without matter the whole eternity of time would perform this work of john cage. He is in my opinion the most profound composer we have by simple dint of this one work alone. I don't know how he actually recorded this work in terms of music manuscript which is the traditional and therefore dated method but he delivered to us a universe without matter and this is profound beyond reckoning. He makes us yearn for sound. Truly profound.


You might like to visit the following thread on John Cage and 4'33",

http://www.talkclassical.com/36315-why-433-disparaged-while-78.html


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

I was rather hoping that a thread called The Genius of John Cage would feature more works than one. 
If Cage-lovers could talk about his musical career and name pieces which are considered important in his development, that would be absolutely brilliant. :tiphat:


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## MoonlightSonata (Mar 29, 2014)

Ingélou said:


> I was rather hoping that a thread called The Genius of John Cage would feature more works than one. If Cage-lovers could talk about his musical career and name pieces which are considered important in his development, that would be absolutely brilliant. :tiphat:
> 
> CoAG? Some guy? Arpeggio?


In Praise of John Cage


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## GioCar (Oct 30, 2013)

and

http://www.talkclassical.com/4342-john-cage.html

What about merging all these threads?


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Thanks for these links, GioCar - though I don't think it matters if there are multiple threads for Cage, as there are for so many other composers.


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## GioCar (Oct 30, 2013)

Personally I find the threads of the "Composer Guestbooks" forum very useful when I want to make a quick search on works and recommendations for a certain composer.

Yes, there are many threads for many composers all around TC, but imo it's not a bad idea to merge the most general ones (such as those mentioned) into a single thread in the Composer Guestbooks. A similar work has been done from time to time with the help of some members (science comes to mind).

PS I would keep separate those threads such as the well-known 4'33'' since it's very specific and quite enjoyable to follow the discussion


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

Also check out the following threads:

http://www.talkclassical.com/36103-praise-john-cage.html#post804200

http://www.talkclassical.com/4342-john-cage.html#post36691

Too many negative waves in: http://www.talkclassical.com/36315-why-433-disparaged-while.html#post811631


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

michael5150 said:


> I wish to dedicate this thread to a composer who for a short period of time ceased to write music and during that periodgave us one of If not the most profound musical offerings of all time. It is not music and yet it is. It is silence.
> John cage in listening to silence makes us feel emotion no less than when we listen to bach. He makes us yearn to hear not just audible music but sound as a definition.


I didn't need John Cage to be aware of that, as people before John Cage didn't need a statement like 4'33'' to realize that. In fact, there are stories about Thelonious Monk talking about the natural sounds, or there is Robert Pete Williams who called his music air music because he was fully aware of the sounds around him and those sounds changed his improvisations, and he certainly hadn't a clue about John Cage. 
So if we want to say that 4'33 as a idea has a philosophical deepness I'm ok with that. But I think it's ridiculous when I read someone speaking of that as it was something that nobody realized or ever thought about, just because nobody felt the need to bring the idea to hear natural sounds in a concert hall.
Because what I really don't like about 4'33 is not the idea, is the fact that a lot of persons seems in awe of this as Cage has patented a simple idea as it was a work of genius like the theory of relativity, "nobody did before him" and things like that.


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

The problem with attempting to discuss John Cage is that his legacy's ebullient entourage of falsehoods precede both it and him by some way, and that from these falsehoods have sprung extended families of misconceptions which stand to invariably bludgeon to death any prospect of sincere, open conversation before that conversation can begin. Seems that any thread on Cage will, with rare exception, feature prominently the _firmly-believe-they-__already-knows_ and the _don't-want-to-know-but-want-you-to-know-they-don't-want-to-knows_, and very few of the _would-like-to-knows_. Yes, yes, of course, this is just my modernist persecution complex talking, pay no mind, folks; but do perhaps consider, whether you find yourself on this side or that side of the alleged divide, the benefits of challenging your dearly held notions.


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## michael5150 (May 24, 2015)

Firstly if john cage showed genius in his other works I would have mentioned them. Secondly if you read my thread properly I talked about a universe without matter. Matter makes sound. If space is matter then indeed silence can never be achieved.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Crudblud said:


> The problem with attempting to discuss John Cage is that his legacy's ebullient entourage of falsehoods precede both it and him by some way, and that from these falsehoods have sprung extended families of misconceptions which stand to invariably bludgeon to death any prospect of sincere, open conversation before that conversation can begin. Seems that any thread on Cage will, with rare exception, feature prominently the _firmly-believe-they-__already-knows_ and the _don't-want-to-know-but-want-you-to-know-they-don't-want-to-knows_, and very few of the _would-like-to-knows_. Yes, yes, of course, this is just my modernist persecution complex talking, pay no mind, folks; but do perhaps consider, whether you find yourself on this side or that side of the alleged divide, the benefits of challenging your dearly held notions.


But you seem to know, so any chance of sharing?
_PS Oh sorry, I suppose I can always go to the other threads..._


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## SeptimalTritone (Jul 7, 2014)

Ingélou said:


> But you seem to know, so any chance of sharing?
> _PS Oh sorry, I suppose I can always go to the other threads..._


Well, I made a list of John Cage works. http://www.talkclassical.com/36103-praise-john-cage.html

I also emphasized (sorry to beat a dead horse, but again) the similarities of John Cage's works (including 4'33") with the rest of the musique concrete movement (Stockhausen, Varese, Berio).


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## Selby (Nov 17, 2012)

Ingélou said:


> But you seem to know, so any chance of sharing?
> _PS Oh sorry, I suppose I can always go to the other threads..._


Heya Ingelou,

A couple pieces I really like:

In a Landscape (1948) (arr. for harp)





Thirteen Harmonies (1985) (for violin and electric keyboard)





First Construction, in metal (1939) 





hope this helps!


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## michael5150 (May 24, 2015)

John cage's philosophy is wrong. He reached a height with composing silence and then spoke of nothing can be truly silent. He said it with reference to the fact that sound can not be avoided. But he composed silence. So what is he talking about? If 4.33 was performed in a concert hall and someone coughed or someone accidentally hit their string with the bow 4.33 would still be silence.
To say that silence can not be achieved is wrong because he composed silence. It's like saying that a beethoven symphony had a wrong note in it because someone sneezed.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

But he didn't compose silence, he merely instructed the instrumentalist(s) not to play. The music is the remaining sound in the concert hall. Coughs, accidentally hitting a string, phones going off etc. are all part of what the audience experiences and is therefore what they will listen to as music.


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

Ingélou said:


> But you seem to know, so any chance of sharing?
> _PS Oh sorry, I suppose I can always go to the other threads..._


Not my intention to paint myself as the bearer of truth necessarily, merely to question why we can't just sit down and have a chat on this particular subject. We've always got to take Cage as the self-ordained bringer of revolution to the idiot concert hall goers, laughing in the face of all who "just dont get it, maaaaan," we can't for a minute consider that he was really a down to earth bloke with particular ideas about music and an active imagination which allowed him to apply those ideas. No, we've always got to talk ideology, modernist this, progressive that, avant-garde whatevers and conservative whoevers, the man cannot stand on his own, must be a figurehead, a flag raised high above some marching battalion of crazed heathens who want to round up all your Mozart CDs and set them on fire. Cage is an anti-musical bogeyman, the inventor of silence (except he wasn't and other people thought of it first, so there, take that, Cage, you colossal ****!) and the man who used Ancient Chinese cosmologies and Zen Koans to mess with well to do people who just wanted a pleasant night at the opera. His ideas are decried as phony baloney by people who don't even know what they are, and worse still the misconceptions become the facts according to popular belief.

In truth, the people who like Cage are often just as ignorant as the people who think he's the worst thing to happen to music since Sibelius destroyed his eighth symphony. It seems there are few who can simply entertain a healthy respect for the spirit in which he worked, his belief in doubting, questioning, challenging, exploring things in music, and to see what is possible through doing so. While he is alternately a messiah of the American avant-garde or a charlatan god worshipped by other charlatans in the popular view, that's hardly his fault, and I wish we could get past the reception of his work and to the work itself and the ideas behind it, both of which are hugely varied - and certainly I would be lying if I said I liked or understood them all - and thoroughly vital to contemporary music and the people working within that field.

I'm too tired to write any more but hopefully this post has at least a semblance of sense about it.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

norman bates said:


> I didn't need John Cage to be aware of that, as people before John Cage didn't need a statement like 4'33'' to realize that. In fact, there are stories about Thelonious Monk talking about the natural sounds, or there is Robert Pete Williams who called his music air music because he was fully aware of the sounds around him and those sounds changed his improvisations, and he certainly hadn't a clue about John Cage.
> So if we want to say that 4'33 as a idea has a philosophical deepness I'm ok with that. But I think it's ridiculous when I read someone speaking of that as it was something that nobody realized or ever thought about, just because nobody felt the need to bring the idea to hear natural sounds in a concert hall.
> Because what I really don't like about 4'33 is not the idea, is the fact that a lot of persons seems in awe of this as Cage has patented a simple idea as it was a work of genius like the theory of relativity, "nobody did before him" and things like that.


Agree entirely. Composers throughout history have used pauses in music, especially in opera for example to deliberately want that moment of spontaneous silence and that works excellently.


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## SimonNZ (Jul 12, 2012)

Ingélou said:


> I was rather hoping that a thread called The Genius of John Cage would feature more works than one.
> If Cage-lovers could talk about his musical career and name pieces which are considered important in his development, that would be absolutely brilliant. :tiphat:


I find it hard to single out specific Cage works for newcomers, from the reasonable percentage that I've now heard. As fascinating as I find him and a great many of his works I liken my interest in him to my interest in Picasso, which is admiring the endless inspiration and creativity across an unbroken and interconnected stream of work, rather than individual masterpieces, best appreciated when seen from a wider perspective.

(well, okay, the Sonatas and Interludes stand alone pretty well and are even kinda fun)


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

It would make more sense to compare Cage with Duchamp than Picasso. Stravinsky is the composer I immediately think of in relationship to Picasso... and he falls far short of the preeminence of the great Spaniard.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Crudblud said:


> We've always got to take Cage as the self-ordained bringer of revolution to the idiot concert hall goers, laughing in the face of all who "just dont get it, maaaaan," we can't for a minute consider that he was really a down to earth bloke with particular ideas about music and an active imagination which allowed him to apply those ideas. No, we've always got to talk ideology, modernist this, progressive that, avant-garde whatevers and conservative whoevers, the man cannot stand on his own, must be a figurehead, a flag raised high above some marching battalion of crazed heathens who want to round up all your Mozart CDs and set them on fire. Cage is an anti-musical bogeyman, the inventor of silence (except he wasn't and other people thought of it first, so there, take that, Cage, you colossal ****!) and the man who used Ancient Chinese cosmologies and Zen Koans to mess with well to do people who just wanted a pleasant night at the opera. His ideas are decried as phony baloney by people who don't even know what they are, and worse still the misconceptions become the facts according to popular belief.
> 
> In truth, the people who like Cage are often just as ignorant as the people who think he's the worst thing to happen to music since Sibelius destroyed his eighth symphony. It seems there are few who can simply entertain a healthy respect for the spirit in which he worked, his belief in doubting, questioning, challenging, exploring things in music, and to see what is possible through doing so. *While he is alternately a messiah of the American avant-garde or a charlatan god worshipped by other charlatans in the popular view, that's hardly his fault, and I wish we could get past the reception of his work and to the work itself and the ideas behind it,* both of which are hugely varied - and certainly I would be lying if I said I liked or understood them all - and thoroughly vital to contemporary music and the people working within that field.


Yes, it's always good to hear a composer spoken of as a composer, in terms of the actual character and characteristics of his music. But why is it that we hear more about Cage's philosophies than about his music? The arts in the 20th century were obviously theory-heavy; when things look and sound unfamiliar and hard to understand, words are called to the rescue. But in Cage's case, who or what is responsible for the way the composer's work is viewed? He talked and wrote a great deal, both to explain what he thought about music and to lay out a larger philosophy of life. I enjoy reading his thoughts; actually, I confess, I enjoy it more than I enjoy listening to his music, or what I've heard of it.

But Cage did more than talk and write philosophy. He walked his talk and sought ways of embodying his philosophy in sound, and in the process produced things whose meaning and value were anything but self-evident. People saw and heard strange objects and happenings and scratched their heads - and words came to the rescue, in a time when the meaning of much new art seemed to reside at least as much in the mind as in the eye or the ear. Maybe we shouldn't be surprised that theories and claims _about_ Cage came to overshadow the actual music _of_ Cage, and that even now the OP locates Cage's "genius" (dangerous concept) exclusively in that ultimate experiment in musical philosophy which renounces actual composition in favor of the concretization of an idea - an idea which asks us to exercise faculties of perception that do not depend for their exercise on the presence, or even the existence, of anything called music. 4'33" is perhaps the final triumph of theory over art, and the final destination from which Cage, and his reputation, can never return.

Isn't it possible that, if the conceptions of Cage held by his advocates and detractors have gotten in the way of a just appreciation of his music, Cage himself, by making music a calculated vehicle of extramusical thought, is primarily to blame?


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## SeptimalTritone (Jul 7, 2014)

Have you guys heard the Imaginary Landscapaes? It's a full albumn that's episodic in its presentation, with both intense parts and meditative parts.


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## SeptimalTritone (Jul 7, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> Yes, it's always good to hear a composer spoken of as a composer, in terms of the actual character and characteristics of his music. But why is it that we hear more about Cage's philosophies than about his music, if in fact we do? The arts in the 20th century were obviously theory-heavy; when things look and sound unfamiliar and hard to understand, words are called to the rescue. But in Cage's case, who or what is responsible for the way the composer's work is viewed? He talked and wrote a great deal, both to explain what he thought about music and to lay out a larger philosophy of life. I enjoy reading his thoughts; actually, I confess, I enjoy it more than I enjoy listening to his music, or what I've heard of it.
> 
> But Cage did more than talk and write philosophy. He walked his talk and sought ways of embodying his philosophy in sound, and in the process produced things whose meaning and value were anything but self-evident. People saw and heard strange things and scratched their heads - and words came to the rescue, in a time when the meaning of much new art seemed to reside at least as much in the mind as in the eye or the ear. Maybe we shouldn't be surprised that theories and claims _about_ Cage came to overshadow the actual music _of_ Cage, and that even now the OP locates Cage's "genius" (dangerous concept) exclusively in that ultimate experiment in musical philosophy which renounces actual composition in favor of the concretization of an idea - an idea which asks us to exercise faculties of perception that do not depend for their exercise on the presence, or even the existence, of anything called music. 4'33" is perhaps the final triumph of theory over art, and the final destination from which Cage, and his reputation, can never return.
> 
> Isn't it possible that, if the conceptions of Cage held by his advocates and detractors have gotten in the way of a just appreciation of his music, Cage himself, by making music a calculated vehicle of extramusical thought, is primarily to blame?


But Cage writes enjoyable, moving music that's so good on its own! I hardly even think about the extramusical parts!


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## Autocrat (Nov 14, 2014)

michael5150 said:


> Firstly if john cage showed genius in his other works I would have mentioned them. Secondly if you read my thread properly I talked about a universe without matter. Matter makes sound. If space is matter then indeed silence can never be achieved.


That's not how sound works in this universe. YMMV.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

SeptimalTritone said:


> But Cage writes enjoyable, moving music that's so good on its own! I hardly even think about the extramusical parts!


Well, I don't see how that relates to my speculations on Cage's reputation, but - congratulations! :tiphat:


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> Yes, it's always good to hear a composer spoken of as a composer, in terms of the actual character and characteristics of his music. But why is it that we hear more about Cage's philosophies than about his music, if in fact we do? *The arts in the 20th century were obviously theory-heavy; when things look and sound unfamiliar and hard to understand, words are called to the rescue. *But in Cage's case, who or what is responsible for the way the composer's work is viewed? He talked and wrote a great deal, both to explain what he thought about music and to lay out a larger philosophy of life. I enjoy reading his thoughts; actually, I confess, I enjoy it more than I enjoy listening to his music, or what I've heard of it.
> 
> But Cage did more than talk and write philosophy. He walked his talk and sought ways of embodying his philosophy in sound, and in the process produced things whose meaning and value were anything but self-evident. People saw and heard strange things and scratched their heads - and words came to the rescue, in a time when the meaning of much new art seemed to reside at least as much in the mind as in the eye or the ear. Maybe we shouldn't be surprised that theories and claims _about_ Cage came to overshadow the actual music _of_ Cage, and that even now the OP locates Cage's "genius" (dangerous concept) exclusively in that ultimate experiment in musical philosophy which renounces actual composition in favor of the concretization of an idea - an idea which asks us to exercise faculties of perception that do not depend for their exercise on the presence, or even the existence, of anything called music. *4'33" is perhaps the final triumph of theory over art*, and the final destination from which Cage, and his reputation, can never return.
> 
> Isn't it possible that, if the conceptions of Cage held by his advocates and detractors have gotten in the way of a just appreciation of his music, Cage himself, by making music a calculated vehicle of extramusical thought, is primarily to blame?












Beautifully canvassed and clarified _Variation on a Theme of Tom Wolfe as Applied to John Cage_._ ;D_


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## SimonNZ (Jul 12, 2012)

Are you Woodduck's personal cheerleader? You turn up in these discussions to say nothing more than "Gimme a W! Gimme an O!"


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## SeptimalTritone (Jul 7, 2014)

-nuked to oblivion-


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> Yes, it's always good to hear a composer spoken of as a composer, in terms of the actual character and characteristics of his music. But why is it that we hear more about Cage's philosophies than about his music? The arts in the 20th century were obviously theory-heavy; when things look and sound unfamiliar and hard to understand, words are called to the rescue. But in Cage's case, who or what is responsible for the way the composer's work is viewed? He talked and wrote a great deal, both to explain what he thought about music and to lay out a larger philosophy of life. I enjoy reading his thoughts; actually, I confess, I enjoy it more than I enjoy listening to his music, or what I've heard of it.
> 
> But Cage did more than talk and write philosophy. He walked his talk and sought ways of embodying his philosophy in sound, and in the process produced things whose meaning and value were anything but self-evident. People saw and heard strange objects and happenings and scratched their heads - and words came to the rescue, in a time when the meaning of much new art seemed to reside at least as much in the mind as in the eye or the ear. Maybe we shouldn't be surprised that theories and claims _about_ Cage came to overshadow the actual music _of_ Cage, and that even now the OP locates Cage's "genius" (dangerous concept) exclusively in that ultimate experiment in musical philosophy which renounces actual composition in favor of the concretization of an idea - an idea which asks us to exercise faculties of perception that do not depend for their exercise on the presence, or even the existence, of anything called music. 4'33" is perhaps the final triumph of theory over art, and the final destination from which Cage, and his reputation, can never return.
> 
> Isn't it possible that, if the conceptions of Cage held by his advocates and detractors have gotten in the way of a just appreciation of his music, Cage himself, by making music a calculated vehicle of extramusical thought, is primarily to blame?


I could not have put it better myself.

I do find Cage's thoughts *interesting* in some aspects but musically not too interesting.


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## Guest (May 27, 2015)

Article heading_: *4'33" has made him famous - or should that be notorious? - but listen to his actual music and you'll hear that there's a great deal more to John Cage than his ideas:*_

http://www.theguardian.com/music/tomserviceblog/2012/aug/13/john-cage-contemporary-music-guide


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## trazom (Apr 13, 2009)

Autocrat said:


> That's not how sound works in this universe. YMMV.


Well, you never know, maybe in his universe it is.


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

Woodduck said:


> Yes, it's always good to hear a composer spoken of as a composer, in terms of the actual character and characteristics of his music. But why is it that we hear more about Cage's philosophies than about his music? The arts in the 20th century were obviously theory-heavy; when things look and sound unfamiliar and hard to understand, words are called to the rescue. But in Cage's case, who or what is responsible for the way the composer's work is viewed? He talked and wrote a great deal, both to explain what he thought about music and to lay out a larger philosophy of life. I enjoy reading his thoughts; actually, I confess, I enjoy it more than I enjoy listening to his music, or what I've heard of it.
> 
> But Cage did more than talk and write philosophy. He walked his talk and sought ways of embodying his philosophy in sound, and in the process produced things whose meaning and value were anything but self-evident. People saw and heard strange objects and happenings and scratched their heads - and words came to the rescue, in a time when the meaning of much new art seemed to reside at least as much in the mind as in the eye or the ear. Maybe we shouldn't be surprised that theories and claims _about_ Cage came to overshadow the actual music _of_ Cage, and that even now the OP locates Cage's "genius" (dangerous concept) exclusively in that ultimate experiment in musical philosophy which renounces actual composition in favor of the concretization of an idea - an idea which asks us to exercise faculties of perception that do not depend for their exercise on the presence, or even the existence, of anything called music. 4'33" is perhaps the final triumph of theory over art, and the final destination from which Cage, and his reputation, can never return.
> 
> Isn't it possible that, if the conceptions of Cage held by his advocates and detractors have gotten in the way of a just appreciation of his music, Cage himself, by making music a calculated vehicle of extramusical thought, is primarily to blame?


I've said many times before that if one dismisses Mozart on the basis of _Eine kleine Nachtmusik_, it simply serves to illustrate why one should not talk about Mozart, so too with John Cage and _4'33''_. For myself, the idea of a piece composed merely of potential sonic events is, as it seems to be for most others, more interesting as a thought than as a piece of music, after all Cage himself cannot lay claim to the sounds one hears during a performance of his piece, but that is one of his primary concerns in coming up with the piece in the first place, and his later works, though made up of sounds more definitely composed in some way, are also concerned with the removal of the composer ego from the process by way of working chance and choice for the performer into the structure. The interesting thing is that, to quote one of my own reviews (this one of the Frank Zappa album _Lumpy Gravy_), "Cage sought to remove himself, his ego as a creator, from the music through this indeterminacy[, he] largely failed to do so, since the resulting creations were so original that they were instantly recognisable as his own and no one else's." It is my feeling that he was embattled, not only in the public sphere, but in his work and thinking, by the contradictions inherent in this fact, that although he may not entirely be in control of the performance he implicitly lays out all possibilities, everything heard in the context of the performance is ultimately within the parameters determined by the composer.

As you say, the conceptions of Cage by the public stem ultimately from Cage himself, and the ideas he was willing to put forth. However, if a person does something, is it necessarily the fault of the person who told them "it is possible to do this thing," or is it the fault of the person who does the thing? My own feeling is that _4'33''_ has been blown out of proportion, not by Cage himself, who merely presented the possibility, as do all people who ever toss a penny into the wishing well of ideas, but by people who have taken this possibility and ran with it, dragging it out to ludicrous proportions, when in actual fact it is merely four minutes and thirty-three seconds of potential sounds. I do not believe that Cage is to blame for what other people do with his ideas, and if, as you say, the value of those ideas and their practical applications is not self-evident, I feel that is more damning of advocate and detractor than inventor, of those who have in their attempts to understand done the aforementioned "dragging out."

You are also correct to say that words, explanations, must come to the aid of the music. It is natural for any music that lies beyond the established boundaries of its time to find itself in need of explanation, but because of this explanation, or the audience's need for it, the music is then somehow different, because the gut reaction was not one of emotion or whatever it is people expect to feel when they listen to music, but of confusion, what is it? why is it? how is it? This of course is not the sole dominion of Cage, most if not all of the important composers and musical thinkers of the 20th century came up against the same problem. We can even look back to Wagner, way back in the 1860s, after whom there seemed to be a kind of snowball effect, which was soon aided and abetted by similar occurrences in technology. 12-tone technique came in 1921, less than a decade before the idea that music could be created with recorded sounds, which ballooned over the next decade, the 1930s, until _musique concrète_ became possible in the early 1940s. It wasn't too long after that either, that _elektronische Musik_ sprang up in Germany, concurrently with Darmstadt and integral serialism. So much occurred in the 20th century, so many technological advances, which fed and were fed by musical developments, and over such a short space of time, it's no wonder that people reacted with confusion. The problem now, I think, is that this reaction, and the more formulated responses of disgust at this execrable noise and so forth - which we mustn't forget was also the establishment's reaction to a piece premièred in 1894 called _Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune_ - that followed it has become Pavlovian, a conditioned response to stimulus which might be "atonal music," or "serialism," or "aleatory," or "tape music," or whatever, and not necessarily the things those words describe but the words themselves. I said in my previous post that Cage's ideas are called phony baloney by people who don't even know what they are, and this can be equally true of the music itself, again not just of Cage but of a whole bunch of really very different musics ranging from minimalism to integral serialism.

Now, at some point during the writing of this, and I must say the labour has been considerably protracted, I forgot what the point of this discussion was, but my vague recollection of things said last night - and they are really vague, trust me - indicates I may be on the right track here. I hope I am, because otherwise I have wasted the best part of a morning trying to argue for the validity of something that wasn't even being questioned. I did read through the post I am quoting, I assure you, and have glanced upward at occasional intervals, but please let me know if everything I have said up to this point is irrelevant gibberish. Thank you.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

I would not dare put Mozart, _Eine kleine Nachtmusik_, John Cage and _4'33"_ in the one sentence. Now think very carefully about why that might be the case.


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## SimonNZ (Jul 12, 2012)

Erm...that first sentence is one sentence.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

TalkingHead said:


> Article heading_: *4'33" has made him famous - or should that be notorious? - but listen to his actual music and you'll hear that there's a great deal more to John Cage than his ideas:*_
> 
> http://www.theguardian.com/music/tomserviceblog/2012/aug/13/john-cage-contemporary-music-guide


That's what I have said all along. 4'33" has *clouded* his overall reputation in a non-progressive way overshadowing his much more musical works. His Ocean of Sounds is entirely acceptable, but never mentioned as far as I can read here at TC.

On a more positive note, I would encourage recognition of this *fine piece* by Cage,


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

ArtMusic said:


> I would not dare put Mozart, _Eine kleine Nachtmusik_, John Cage and _4'33"_ in the one sentence. Now think very carefully about why that might be the case.


Unfortunately I am not a mind reader, so could you perhaps share your opinions with the rest of the class?


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Crudblud said:


> Unfortunately I am not a mind reader, so could you perhaps share your opinions with the rest of the class?


I meant to simply say the two composers and works mentioned are strictly not comparable.


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

I've really tried to like Cage but have failed. I just don't hear anything interesting in his work. In my opinion he was a clever thinker and passable inventor, but not much of a composer. Schoenberg was right.


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> But he didn't compose silence, he merely instructed the instrumentalist(s) not to play. The music is the remaining sound in the concert hall. Coughs, accidentally hitting a string, phones going off etc. are all part of what the audience experiences and is therefore what they will listen to as music.


The remaining sounds are not music - they are random and uncomposed sounds. It's akin to taking some dirt, sticking it in a gallery and calling it a 'sculpture'; 'art'. How lazy and shameless. Cage's work (or 'non-work') is merely evidence of cultural degeneration.


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## Headphone Hermit (Jan 8, 2014)

ArtMusic said:


> I meant to simply say the two composers and works mentioned are strictly not comparable.


There didn't seem to be any intention to compare the two composers or the two works.

The point was that it would be unfair to judge *any* composer on the basis of just *one* work.


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## Guest (May 27, 2015)

ArtMusic said:


> I meant to simply say the two composers and works mentioned are strictly not comparable.


Well yeah. It would be like comparing Handel and Haydn. Different styles, man. I feel ya.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

Crudblud said:


> We've always got to take Cage as the self-ordained bringer of revolution to the idiot concert hall goers, laughing in the face of all who "just dont get it, maaaaan," we can't for a minute consider that *he was really a down to earth bloke* with particular ideas about music and an active imagination which allowed him to apply those ideas.


He really was, by all accounts. Even Richard Taruskin, who's usually almost deranged in his hatred of modernism, can't quite bring himself to condemn Cage. He had a very open, experimental, humble approach for his entire career. He never made any grandiose claims. He just followed what interested him.

When people complain about Cage they tend to talk a lot about what music should or must be, which is something I cannot understand at all. Talk about the triumph of theory over art!

What bad thing is going to happen if we just approach Cage's work on its own terms? Why do we have to talk about all this other stuff? It's so tedious.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

nathanb said:


> Well yeah. It would be like comparing Handel and Haydn. Different styles, man. I feel ya.


Agree that's very well put.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

michael5150 said:


> I wish to dedicate this thread to a composer who for a short period of time ceased to write music and during that periodgave us one of If not the most profound musical offerings of all time. It is not music and yet it is. It is silence.
> John cage in listening to silence makes us feel emotion no less than when we listen to bach. He makes us yearn to hear not just audible music but sound as a definition. This is unique in music history. The silence is nothing and in being nothing it is not just something it is everything. It has no rules. It has no measurement. In a universe without matter the whole eternity of time would perform this work of john cage. He is in my opinion the most profound composer we have by simple dint of this one work alone. I don't know how he actually recorded this work in terms of music manuscript which is the traditional and therefore dated method but he delivered to us a universe without matter and this is profound beyond reckoning. He makes us yearn for sound. Truly profound.


Cage said many things that would either support or refute what you're saying. Even people who admire him and who he has influenced have said that he is contradictory. He can be described in many ways, along a spectrum that goes from being an anarchist to an authoritarian and everything in between. His music, which can roughly be divided into five periods, reflects aspects of this tension between control and freedom. So too his changing opinions, including those on other composers.

In the past few months, I have read a recent biography on him. He was influential in a number of areas, chiefly in avant-garde music and the visual arts. To better understand this, the contradictions and questions his legacy has posed must be able to be analysed, as any other composer. These aren't matters strictly related to his music, because the basis of his approach was that art equals life. So his interests in diverse areas such as all of the creative arts, the sciences, philosophy, psychology, politics, technology and so on have to be included in any assessment of what he was about.

I have contributed to various debates on Cage over the years on this forum, as well as talked about him in relation to other related topics. I am of the view that his legacy was an important one, but also quite mixed. By that, I mean yes he is controversial, but what I value in it is his carrying on certain aspects within music and also inspiring others. For example, Ives, Satie, Cowell all had their impacts on Cage, and he in turn made impacts on composers as diverse as Lutoslawski, Feldman, Meredith Monk and others. At the same time I am not an admirer of abstract or conceptual art, but I do realise that Cage made impacts there as well (as well as having predecessors).

I can go on, but that will suffice. I will only participate in these topics if I am given some sort of leeway to do so - and if you want contradictions, you need not go anywhere but Cage. That's just being human, but if you give him the benefit of the doubt, give it to me as well.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

I have also stated my opinion on this forum for many years that 4'33" is more a conceptual art piece than music (or at least, within the bounds of what would be called music outside those in the avant-garde category). I was attacked by this opinion in early 2013. 

I think that with the relaxed attitude to this opinion now being evident here, I have been proven right, or at least no less wrong compared to those who inisist it is music, same as some core repertoire piece by the abovementioned Mozart. I agree that its a shame that 4'33" eclipses much else about Cage, not the least his actual music, and its good that discussions are moving towards his music. 

This is not only theory because Cage was against sound recordings being made of his music too, but I think that without those most listeners couldn't hear it. Barring a live performance, I am not a pianist and nor do I have access to a private orchestra at home like the aristocracy of past eras. I think its easy to see this mix of Cage's technological utopianism - early on he was influenced by the Italian Futurists - and a kind of nostalgia for the past, pre-recordings here. Its an aspect of the contradictions that I was speaking about.


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

Sid/Andre... good hearing from you again!


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

StlukesguildOhio said:


> Sid/Andre... good hearing from you again!


Thanks for your compliment. My return is tentative, however I hope that the somewhat improved conditions at TC will allow me to continue to contribute.


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

Welcome back Sid. I missed the toothy crocodile  (or whatever you choose in the future).


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Woodduck said:


> Yes, it's always good to hear a composer spoken of as a composer, in terms of the actual character and characteristics of his music. But why is it that we hear more about Cage's philosophies than about his music? The arts in the 20th century were obviously theory-heavy; when things look and sound unfamiliar and hard to understand, words are called to the rescue. But in Cage's case, who or what is responsible for the way the composer's work is viewed? He talked and wrote a great deal, both to explain what he thought about music and to lay out a larger philosophy of life. I enjoy reading his thoughts; actually, I confess, I enjoy it more than I enjoy listening to his music, or what I've heard of it.


I agree that its interesting to read Cage's opinions, and also about his life. In some ways he was always a work in progress. His situation as a closeted homosexual who was married before finding happiness with the choreographer Merce Cunningham is inspiring. Although they where accepted as a couple in the arts community, they never publicly talked about their relationship. It was right at the end of his life that Cage openly talked about it, and this is understandable given that he witnessed the trial and incarceration of Henry Cowell. It wasn't easy being LGBT when Cage was a young man, and his inquiry into many things beyond music was a way out of a deep personal crisis he experienced.



> But Cage did more than talk and write philosophy. He walked his talk and sought ways of embodying his philosophy in sound, and in the process produced things whose meaning and value were anything but self-evident. People saw and heard strange objects and happenings and scratched their heads - and words came to the rescue, in a time when the meaning of much new art seemed to reside at least as much in the mind as in the eye or the ear. Maybe we shouldn't be surprised that theories and claims _about_ Cage came to overshadow the actual music _of_ Cage, and that even now the OP locates Cage's "genius" (dangerous concept) exclusively in that ultimate experiment in musical philosophy which renounces actual composition in favor of the concretization of an idea - an idea which asks us to exercise faculties of perception that do not depend for their exercise on the presence, or even the existence, of anything called music. 4'33" is perhaps the final triumph of theory over art, and the final destination from which Cage, and his reputation, can never return.


I agree about your conclusions concerning how theory encroached too much on the arts, but in many respects this trend has been reversed in the past few decades. C.S. Lewis put it better than I could, even though this wasn't in relation to music, with this:

_"We all want progress, but if you're on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive."_

But to go back, in the mid 20th century, when Cage was young, things like Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art - both of which he had impacts on - hadn't happened.

There was also little radical or avant-garde music around. Ives' pieces where only being premiered and others like Varese and Schoenberg where only coming to be known gradually too. Cage's formative years was mid 20th century America, same as for others of his generation like Leonard Bernstein, Samuel Barber and Elliott Carter. As things changed and they and others gained more prominence, especially after the war, a lot of these new directions where explored.

There is a strong argument to the effect that things did go too far in rejecting tradition (throwing out the baby with the bathwater) in terms of the post-1945 avant-garde, however I think now in 2015 we can look back and see the reasons why.

In terms of Cage's legacy for music, composers who he influenced such as Lutoslawski are amongst my favourites. I also don't mind Feldman and also others he impacted upon, but probably less and more through the Ives/Cowell/Bartok connection (eg. Hovhaness, Sculthorpe). His music also had impacts on Boulez, Stockhausen, Berio, Reich and Adams. There's many connections with Cage and they aren't all avant-garde or conceptual art, and it goes outside classical music too.



Crudblud said:


> ....
> As you say, the conceptions of Cage by the public stem ultimately from Cage himself, and the ideas he was willing to put forth. However, if a person does something, is it necessarily the fault of the person who told them "it is possible to do this thing," or is it the fault of the person who does the thing? My own feeling is that _4'33''_ has been blown out of proportion, not by Cage himself, who merely presented the possibility, as do all people who ever toss a penny into the wishing well of ideas, but by people who have taken this possibility and ran with it, dragging it out to ludicrous proportions, when in actual fact it is merely four minutes and thirty-three seconds of potential sounds. I do not believe that Cage is to blame for what other people do with his ideas, and if, as you say, the value of those ideas and their practical applications is not self-evident, I feel that is more damning of advocate and detractor than inventor, of those who have in their attempts to understand done the aforementioned "dragging out."...


As I said earlier, I agree that 4'33" is given too much emphasis. Cage often expressed the idea that everything can be beautiful equally so that means that beauty only exists in the eye of the beholder. So in other words, beauty can't exist, it is only perceived. He gave examples like polluted rivers or cities being just as beautiful as something more conventionally thought to be, such as the countryside or a clear stream.

This is not only about perception but also detachment and suspending judgements. It was useful for creative artists who used his methods to avoid projecting their own ego in their work.

As a listener, I can keep Cage's theories in mind when listening to his music, or to other music (especially of similar experimental nature). I can understand his idea of bringing what he called illegal harmonies - the sounds and noises of the outside world- into the concert hall. However I don't think I can train my mind to think that a noisy city is as pleasant as unspoilt countryside. So I don't take these things literally.

In terms of Wagner who you raised later in the same post, I also think he bears comparison to Cage if we're talking 19th century composers. Not only about how his opinions have impacted on his music but also how he aimed to unite all the arts in his music dramas. They where both radicals in their time, for their ideas on music and how they thought it should progress.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

brotagonist said:


> Welcome back Sid. I missed the toothy crocodile  (or whatever you choose in the future).


Thanks for your welcome too brotagonist, but let's see how this thread goes. In a Cagean way, its a work in progress.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Crudblud said:


> I've said many times before that if one dismisses Mozart on the basis of _Eine kleine Nachtmusik_, it simply serves to illustrate why one should not talk about Mozart, so too with John Cage and _4'33''_. For myself, the idea of a piece composed merely of potential sonic events is, as it seems to be for most others, more interesting as a thought than as a piece of music, after all Cage himself cannot lay claim to the sounds one hears during a performance of his piece, but that is one of his primary concerns in coming up with the piece in the first place, and his later works, though made up of sounds more definitely composed in some way, are also concerned with the removal of the composer ego from the process by way of working chance and choice for the performer into the structure. The interesting thing is that, to quote one of my own reviews (this one of the Frank Zappa album _Lumpy Gravy_),* "Cage sought to remove himself, his ego as a creator, from the music through this indeterminacy[, he] largely failed to do so, since the resulting creations were so original that they were instantly recognisable as his own and no one else's."* It is my feeling that he was embattled, not only in the public sphere, but in his work and thinking, by the contradictions inherent in this fact, that although he may not entirely be in control of the performance he implicitly lays out all possibilities, everything heard in the context of the performance is ultimately within the parameters determined by the composer.
> 
> As you say, the conceptions of Cage by the public stem ultimately from Cage himself, and the ideas he was willing to put forth. *However, if a person does something, is it necessarily the fault of the person who told them "it is possible to do this thing," or is it the fault of the person who does the thing? *My own feeling is that *4'33'' has been blown out of proportion, not by Cage himself, *who merely presented the possibility, as do all people who ever toss a penny into the wishing well of ideas,* but by people who have taken this possibility and ran with it, dragging it out to ludicrous proportions, *when in actual fact it is merely four minutes and thirty-three seconds of potential sounds. *I do not believe that Cage is to blame for what other people do with his ideas, and if, as you say, the value of those ideas and their practical applications is not self-evident, I feel that is more damning of advocate and detractor than inventor, of those who have in their attempts to understand done the aforementioned "dragging out."
> *
> ...


You've made perfect sense, as I read you. I agree at the outset that 4'33" and what it means or doesn't mean casts a shadow over Cage's actual musical achievement, that it was not intended by Cage to be central to that achievement, and that this situation is no doubt unfair to him. We might explain the peculiar reputation of that one-time experiment - its notoriety and prominence - mainly by reference to its uniqueness and extremity. We may also explain it by reference to its legitimate status as a philosophical provocation: is it music, and what is music anyway? I dare say no other work which calls itself, or which is called, music presents that provocation so starkly. I was only intending to point out that this latter aspect of it, while extreme, is consistent with the increasing prominence of theory in the way the arts presented themselves to the public during the 20th century. And certainly Cage was a prominent participant in this trend.

In most cases artists (and critics) talk about art mainly as a response to the art itself, which arises out of urges for expression which largely precede the formulation of ideas about it. But as the 20th century wore on it seemed that the tail came to wag the dog, and it became almost obligatory to look for an accompanying conceptual frame in which to place first the experience of art, and then, even, the actual creation of it. As you point out, we can trace this trend farther back, into the 19th century; Wagner is certainly a prototype of the artist as intellectual, who did in fact lay out and publish theories describing in detail what he intended to do and why. He was attacked for his "system" of composing (mainly the use of leitmotiv), but of course it didn't take people long to get used to it and even to begin oversimplifying its significance, which understandably chagrined the composer (but must have been satisfying to him as well). Wagner, however, was not typical of his time in his need to philosophize about his work; he just seemed to need to do it to keep the juices flowing. His real contribution to the explosion of words which followed him was not primarily his words but his music, which laid down challenges of all sorts, the most consequential of which was the enormous expansion of harmony and the concept of tonality. But this is getting off on a tangent, and I really didn't intend to go there.

My main point is that the situation in which Cage's music finds itself, as taking something of a backseat, at least in the general consciousness, to ideas about him, is - although not, as you say, "the sole dominion of Cage" - very definitely a result of a larger, cultural dominion of ideas and attitudes of which he was an enthusiastic and even charismatic representative. The audience for modern art in the mid-20th century was trained to look for philosophical explanations and verbal guidance by highly placed critics and ultimately by artists themselves, who had in previous eras not often been asked why they were doing what they were doing (and would in most cases have answered "because I'm paid to"). Cage was a prominent, influential, articulate, and very colorful figure - whether tying bolts to piano strings, picking mushrooms, making koan-like aphorisms, or twinkling elf-like in photos - and many of his creations were as colorful as he was. So, although we might regret it, I'm not sure that it should surprise us that he should have become a major symbol of musical modernism, and that the man and his ideas, rightly or wrongly understood, should stand in the way of people's experiencing his music as music. But will that remain the case forever? if the music deserves a better fate, wouldn't you think that time will do its usual work and give the music what it deserves?

I can see where those questions would be painful, or at least an irritating, ones for anyone who feels that any music they care about is not getting the sympathetic attention it deserves. But maybe it's worth considering that attempts (like this thread) to tell people that a peripheral concept-piece like 4'33" is a work of transcendent musical genius is only reinforcing an idea of art as embodied philosophy in need of explanation which stands in the way of experiencing art as art.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> ...But maybe it's worth considering that attempts (like this thread) to tell people that a peripheral concept-piece like 4'33" is a work of transcendent musical genius is only reinforcing an idea of art as embodied philosophy in need of explanation which stands in the way of experiencing art as art.


I think this thread has taken a very good turn, with posts explaining in lucid detail the context of what Cage did and how his music is or might be regarded.
:tiphat: Thank you Crudblud, Woodduck & Sid James, and others too.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Woodduck said:


> ...
> I can see where those questions would be painful, or at least an irritating, ones for anyone who feels that any music they care about is not getting the sympathetic attention it deserves. But maybe it's worth considering that attempts (like this thread) to tell people that a peripheral concept-piece like 4'33" is a work of transcendent musical genius is only reinforcing an idea of art as embodied philosophy in need of explanation which stands in the way of experiencing art as art.


Regarding what you said above, especially this last paragraph, I think that 4'33" is like a symbol of a big faultline in music of the 20th century. You've been here for over a year now, and taken part in these debates, so you will understand my summary - a crude and somewhat reductive one, but it will do - of this divide of those pro and con 4'33":

*Pro* - Anything is music, in terms of composer's intention; Anyone can be a composer; Perception alone defines what is and isn't beautiful; Music doesn't have to be heard; Music can be incidental noises if the listener deems them to be music; Music doesn't have to be planned.

*Con *- There are shared definitions of what is and isn't music; Music and noise are ultimately separate things; Composers are trained in methods, from ancient to new, it doesn't require a high level of training to produce mere noise; Music has to be heard and communicated in some way, it isn't only a concept; The composer has more control than the listener; More aspects of music are planned and calculated than are not.

Even if we bypass this forum for a minute, with the debates of the past and present, composers themselves will differ greatly on these matters. In some respects, Cage himself would, and that's related to how his music went through different phases.

Boulez also incorporated chance elements, so did Stockhausen. On another thread, I have brought up Cage's influence on the East European avant-garde of the 1960's, particularly in Poland, but they like their Western counterparts went back to more control and tradition later.

I remember an interview with Elliott Carter who said that he wanted to control virtually everything he could in terms of how his music is played. He was very particular about dynamics. There is also Morton Feldman, who although he said he owed a great deal to Cage, differed with him on many aspects of composition.

Early in his career, John Adams was influenced by Cage, but later made the conclusion that the techniques in his process pieces phase just resulted in chaos. So according to Adams, as process they where music, but the result was still random noise.

I was surpised that at one point Cage criticised the free jazz of Ornette Coleman and others like him. He thought that it was too free and needed more control and some procedure to underpin it.

I can go on, but its easy to deduct from all this that listeners will also have different opinions on what music should be, and this all impinges on 4'33" and the $64,000 question - are you for or against Modern/contemporary music. That's what it tends to boil down to. Since composers themselves differ, then so can we here, and if we accept that its controversial then the point is that not agreeing is natural. Some people will shift either way, but many will be in between on 4'33" and other aspects of Cage's legacy.


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## Guest (May 28, 2015)

Sid James said:


> I was surpised that at one point Cage criticised the free jazz of Ornette Coleman and others like him. He thought that it was too free and needed more control and some procedure to underpin it.


Really?! That sounds like an impressive bit of mental gymnastics on the part of Cage. Or merely hypocritical?


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## SeptimalTritone (Jul 7, 2014)

Pro: 4'33" is a beautiful, meditative, musical experience. That's it.


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

SimonNZ said:


> Are you Woodduck's personal cheerleader? You turn up in these discussions to say nothing more than "Gimme a W! Gimme an O!"


But SimonNZ, are you sure you aren't just jealous? ;D What's wrong with praising beauty?


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## Guest (May 28, 2015)

michael5150 said:


> John cage's philosophy is wrong.





michael5150 said:


> Truly profound.


Truly profound and yet wrong.
Now I am confused.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Good posts, Sid James. It read quite balanced or at least showed different viewpoints about Cage, both historical and opinion based.


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## Guest (May 28, 2015)

It is curious that someone who actually knew Cage, who has read many books both by and about him, who has been to numerous concerts that have included works by Cage--including one just a couple of weeks ago--who has performed _4'33"_ several times, with various ensembles, who has had many lengthy conversations with several composers and performers who also knew Cage and who perform his music regularly... it is curious that that person can have spent many thousands of pixels carefully correcting statements of fact and rebutting statements of opinion to so little avail.

It is as if expertise--and there are countless examples of this, all over the net--were a handicap. What's important in these discussions is that certain points of view get all the love, no matter how poorly presented or researched or validated, while more accurate and more carefully and sympathetically thought out views don't seem to be able to get any traction at all. Here, it's the idea that Cage's indeterminate compositions are less musical than his more determinate ones, that _4'33"_ was a one-off and not important either to musical history or to Cage himself, that his ideas are more interesting than his music, such as it is.

In the Schoenberg threads, it's that "atonal" music is somehow less natural than tonal, that Schoenberg made a career not out of doing things but of avoiding things, that his music lacks melody and harmony.

Not that there are not spirited and informed counter-opinions to these. There are, in spades. It's just that none of those more intelligent and intellectually valid views seem to be able to get any traction at all.

And so here we are today, with two notorious Cage bashers getting all sorts of love for their careful, balanced, and historically accurate views on Cage. In spite of them being nothing of the sort. Oh well. I suppose there's no help for it. Sad, though. Actually knowing Cage and enjoying his works is a huge impediment. But if you don't particularly like Cage and question the validity of his work, then you can freely express your opinions about him without needing to support them or validate them in any way. Anyone disagree with you? Anyone ask for you to validate your opinions? That's out of line, eh? How dare anyone question the opinion that Cage was a charlatan? The only opinion about Cage that is allowed to be quesioned is the opinion that he was an important composer.

Heigh ho.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

I like the music of John Cage. Quite a lot of what I've heard. Anyone here think his percussion music is just awesome?


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

some guy said:


> It is curious that someone who actually knew Cage, who has read many books both by and about him, who has been to numerous concerts that have included works by Cage--including one just a couple of weeks ago--who has performed _4'33"_ several times, with various ensembles, who has had many lengthy conversations with several composers and performers who also knew Cage and who perform his music regularly... it is curious that that person can have spent many thousands of pixels carefully correcting statements of fact and rebutting statements of opinion to so little avail.
> 
> It is as if expertise--and there are countless examples of this, all over the net--were a handicap. What's important in these discussions is that certain points of view get all the love, no matter how poorly presented or researched or validated, while more accurate and more carefully and sympathetically thought out views don't seem to be able to get any traction at all. Here, it's the idea that Cage's indeterminate compositions are less musical than his more determinate ones, that _4'33"_ was a one-off and not important either to musical history or to Cage himself, that his ideas are more interesting than his music, such as it is.
> 
> ...


I cannot see a single point about the composer John Cage in your post in terms of both his strengths and weaknesses, which surely from a historical point of view, anyone who knew Cage would be eager to share. Sid James' post however was very balanced giving all viewpoints, not just one end of any extreme.


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## Guest (May 28, 2015)

You are suggesting that that one post is the only one I have ever written about Cage? Read it again. It's about having written many such posts (some of them in response to you, so you do indeed know about them). About having written them and seeing the same empty and unsubstantiated canards produced without let or hindrance.


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## SimonNZ (Jul 12, 2012)

ArtMusic said:


> I cannot see a single point about the composer John Cage in your post in terms of both his strengths and weaknesses, which surely from a historical point of view, anyone who knew Cage would be eager to share. Sid James' post however was very balanced giving all viewpoints, not just one end of any extreme.


Your defenders on that other thread should be ashamed of themselves - I honestly believe this - should be ashamed of their own gullibility for being so easily taken in by your uncomprehending act.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

some guy said:


> It is curious that someone who actually knew Cage can have spent many thousands of pixels carefully correcting statements of fact and rebutting statements of opinion to so little avail.
> 
> What's important in these discussions is that certain points of view get all the love, no matter how poorly presented or researched or validated, while more accurate and more carefully and sympathetically thought out views don't seem to be able to get any traction at all. Here, it's the idea that Cage's indeterminate compositions are less musical than his more determinate ones, that _4'33"_ was a one-off and not important either to musical history or to Cage himself, that his ideas are more interesting than his music, such as it is.
> 
> ...


It's possible that not everyone here has read your personal recollections of Cage.

It seems to me that "what's important in these discussions" is not how much "love" anyone gets but that those who have certain knowledge of a subject share it and not be hypercritical of those who may know less. In this case, the idea that indeterminate works are less musical than composed ones is not a matter of knowledge at all but of aesthetic philosophy. People are entitled to hold philosophical ideas without being accused of factual ignorance. It isn't my impression that anyone here is asserting that Cage's ideas are more important than his music. Crudblud's observation was that people seem to feel this way about Cage, and responses to that observation were, in part, speculations on why this might be so.

If there are "more intelligent and intellectually valid views" than those already presented, they will get "traction" here only if they are stated here.

I haven't noticed anyone here calling Cage a "charlatan," or trying to settle the question of his importance. I do see the usual variety of personal responses to his music and his ideas (whether properly understood or not), and some attempts (whether "intelligent and intellectually valid" or not) to understand and discuss his position in 20th century music, in which he indisputably holds a significant place. Whether his music or his ideas are important to any individual encountering them is really not the point. Even those who don't like Cage's work, or think that 4'33" does not meet the criteria for being called music, may be interested in knowing how his work fits into the history of music.

If there are factual misstatements in what people have said here - as opposed to differences in personal assessment - I doubt that even the "notorious Cage bashers" would object to an acquaintance of the composer correcting them.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

some guy said:


> It is curious that someone who actually knew Cage, who has read many books both by and about him, who has been to numerous concerts that have included works by Cage--including one just a couple of weeks ago--who has performed _4'33"_ several times, with various ensembles, who has had many lengthy conversations with several composers and performers who also knew Cage and who perform his music regularly... it is curious that that person can have spent many thousands of pixels carefully correcting statements of fact and rebutting statements of opinion to so little avail.
> 
> It is as if expertise--and there are countless examples of this, all over the net--were a handicap. What's important in these discussions is that certain points of view get all the love, no matter how poorly presented or researched or validated, while more accurate and more carefully and sympathetically thought out views don't seem to be able to get any traction at all...


It is very interesting that you knew Cage and have posted elsewhere in more detail about how you view his achievement. Is there any chance of you providing a link to some of these posts?

I liked what Crudblud, Sid James, Woodduck and others were saying because they seemed to be having a rational discussion, not just having a go at Cage or each other. The thought came to me, 'This seems quite a good thread compared with the one on the Sacred Music Forum'.

Of course, I know almost nothing about Cage, so I can't detect when facts may be wrong - I can only judge by the tone. And the various reviews of the stages of his career and whether his philosophy or music was the more important and the relation of one to the other - it all seemed pretty rational to me.

Still, when I have the time (hospital visits loom), I can go away and read the threads mentioned by MoonlightSonata and GioCar & others.

In the meantime, I will be interested to see your review of his career & summary of his achievement, if you have the time, someguy. :tiphat:


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## SeptimalTritone (Jul 7, 2014)

I'm going to provide an old post in praise of 4'33" in that case!

I think [the sounds of 4'33"] are structured, and structured in a unique and powerful way. There are performer instructions and timings... a first movement, second movement, and third movement. The timings give a rhythmic contour for the piece, which adds to its energy. It's a minimal structuring, but sometimes a minimal structuring is what the doctor ordered.

When I go to the Los Angeles Zen Center to meditate in a group, even that doesn't compare to 4'33". For in group meditation, the primary focus is on your internal breathing and body, and the atmosphere of the crowd is a second order effect. And the coughing and shuffling is a distraction, something we prefer to keep a minimum of. (I was once scolded in front of the entire zendo by some old dude for scratching and shuffling too much myself!)

On the other hand, when the scratching and shuffling is listened to and respected... something different happens. A compassionate communication occurs, where humans respect and feel the nervous energy on top of the intimate presence. Zen masters often say that because we are not used to intimate presence, there is a nervous energy and tension when one first tries to settle into it. Why not have humans go for the intimate presence of God together... by structured auditory communication? With this structured auditory communication, we can share our nervous energy, and say "it's okay to be nervous and tense, for we are all human".

And the structuring of the piece helps achieve this. The first movement is of mid length to get the crowd started, then there is a page turn and coughing break, then there is the second movement of longest length that comprises the "meat" of the piece with the deepest focus, then another break, and finally a short third movement that passes by in what feels like an instant. All of this helps us ride the waves of intimate presence, through an introductory segment of time, a long segment of time, and a short segment of time: all of which have a unique personality and a different crowd energy. Just like Roaratorio has its auditory structure of different recorded sounds played on top of each other at different times, so does 4'33".

In fact: you know how the Chorus Mysticus of Mahler's 8th feels like all of humanity on earth is holding their hands together in unity and compassion? Well... 4'33" achieves something similar, by allowing a crowd to collectively settle down to a state of intimate presence. And it can only do so through being structured in its unique way.


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

SimonNZ said:


> Your defenders on that other thread should be ashamed of themselves - I honestly believe this - should be ashamed of their own gullibility for being so easily taken in by your uncomprehending act.


I have a feeling that I'm included in this group, though I'm not 100% sure what is the thread you are talking about and I don't understand what is this "uncomprehending act" ArtMusic committed.


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## Richannes Wrahms (Jan 6, 2014)

SeptimalTritone said:


> In fact: you know how the Chorus Mysticus of Mahler's 8th feels like all of humanity on earth is holding their hands together in unity and compassion? Well... 4'33" achieves something similar, by allowing a crowd to collectively settle down to a state of intimate presence. And it can only do so through being structured in its unique way.


I'm afraid I find these kinds of things unattractive. must have been all those stupid grupal activities in high school, unrequested false emotional porn...


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

SimonNZ said:


> Your defenders on that other thread should be ashamed of themselves - I honestly believe this - should be ashamed of their own gullibility for being so easily taken in by your uncomprehending act.


No one is "taken in." Frankly I don't think anyone understands what makes ArtMusic tick, and I've given up trying. (Not meant as a criticism of ArtMusic or his enigmatic online persona.)


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

The genius of John Cage... is that anything can be genius.


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## Guest (May 28, 2015)

Dear Ingélou, you remind me that I do not indeed have time. That I probably shouldn't be taking even the time I am taking to refer to the multitude of other times that I have responded in some detail and to no avail. Those threads are pretty easy to find, though. The easiest way, of course, is to just follow the links to "Similar Threads" that appear at the bottom of each thread.

I don't think I have contributed to all of the John Cage threads. As with another favorite of mine (yeah, full disclosure), Hector Berlioz, I find it better for my own serenity to stay away from such threads.

Sorry to wuss out on you like this. I realize it's lame, but then, going over the same ground dozens of times, in the face of persistent canarderie, is kinda lame, too, eh?

Indeed, I was only seduced into posting on this one because of my perception that this--"it all seemed pretty rational to me"--was going on, with many people. I instantly regretted even alluding to the shortcomings of some of the rational sounding posts. I would probably die a little bit on the inside if I were to take those things on--again--in any detail. It's already done. I've done it. I've already done all I can reasonably justify doing.

Todo lo mejor,

Michael


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

DeepR said:


> The genius of John Cage... is that *anything *can be genius.


Or *anyone. *

After reading the book "Surely you must be joking, Mr. Feynman," by Nobel physicist Richard Feynman, I realized what "genius" might be. Feynman was above-average in intelligence, but not "genius-level" IQ. What made him a "genius" was that he learned everything for himself, and did not accept rote answers. He approached everything freshly, and was not intimidated by the large body of knowledge already in existence; he found out things for himself, and asked very simple questions, and penetrated into the nature of problems. Plus, he 'played' with ideas, as he did as a boy, when he had his own "lab" in his room with a crystal radio he built.

True, this "auto-didact" quality made him somewhat quirky; but I see this same quality in figures like Cage, Schoenberg, Satie, George Perle, Milton Babbitt, and others.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

some guy said:


> Dear Ingélou, you remind me that I do not indeed have time. That I probably shouldn't be taking even the time I am taking to refer to the multitude of other times that I have responded in some detail and to no avail. Those threads are pretty easy to find, though. The easiest way, of course, is to just follow the links to "Similar Threads" that appear at the bottom of each thread.
> 
> I don't think I have contributed to all of the John Cage threads. As with another favorite of mine (yeah, full disclosure), Hector Berlioz, I find it better for my own serenity to stay away from such threads.
> 
> ...


 That's fine! Thanks for replying.

Mollie

PS That's the first time I noticed the 'Similar Threads' labels. Thanks again. Duh!


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

some guy said:


> The easiest way, of course, is to just follow the links to "Similar Threads" that appear at the bottom of each thread.


 I can't believe this--despite the ridiculous amount of time I've spent on this forum, I never noticed that! Very handy!


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

Blancrocher said:


> I can't believe this--despite the ridiculous amount of time I've spent on this forum, I never noticed that! Very handy!


Threads found under "Similar Threads" in the Stupid Thread Ideas thread were quite offended when I told them about their position.


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## Guest (May 28, 2015)

Of course, once the brain starts working on a thing, it keeps working, regardless. And all of a sudden, I have a quick break, which I have chosen to use on TC, of only to shut my brain up.

So here's what I would say that I don't think I've mentioned before--that if Cage were interested in any one, single thing above all others, that thing would be discipline. Not freedom. Nor control, either one. Discipline. His whole life is one long illustration of that one consistent idea. When he first started composing, his idea was that music and silence both existed in time. That is the one thing they shared. At first, he worked this out by creating elaborate timings into which any sound could be put. _4'33",_ as the last of his "timed" pieces, stands at the cusp of his compositional thought. It marks the change from filling the times himself, with sounds that many people today respond to as being "normal" music--the percussion pieces and the prepared piano pieces and some early string quartet stuff--to leaving the times completely empty of any of his ideas or tastes. Not empty of sounds, of course, but of intention.

It's an over simplification, but an apt one, that everything he did up to 4'33" was pointing towards that piece (including his noticing that no matter how carefully he prepared a piano, each one sounded different when he was finished), and everything he did afterwards was a consequence of it (his method of "choosing" which sound to put where changed from his personal preference to turning that over to the I Ching).

But that much you can get out of any good bio of the man. _Begin Again_ is a good one. And _The Music of John Cage_ is another. Oddly enough, Kostelanetz' work outside of the interviews is not at all reliable.

The only thing I would say personally is that John was the sweetest, most humble, and most intelligent person I have ever met. I apologize to the dozens of sweet, humble, and intelligent people I have met both before and after I met Cage. Most of them won't mind at all, I'm sure.

Well, break's over. Back to work.


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## Guest (May 28, 2015)

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> I like the music of John Cage. Quite a lot of what I've heard. *Anyone here think his percussion music is just awesome?*


Yes. 
[Don't like the over-used adjective "awesome" but what the hell. Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!]


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## Guest (May 28, 2015)

Blancrocher said:


> I can't believe this--despite the ridiculous amount of time I've spent on this forum, I never noticed that! Very handy!


Erm, I'm ashamed to admit the same.


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

SeptimalTritone said:


> Pro: 4'33" is a beautiful, meditative, musical experience. That's it.


Yes, it's as simple as that. A matter of personal preference. I don't like 4'33" myself but let me say I do appreciate the passion that others have for it. I know how it is when you have a strong admiration for something and you feel it is misunderstood by others. 
But, any opinion on 4'33" is fine and as valid as the next one, as long as facts aren't misrepresented. I know what I need to know about 4'33" to make up my own mind about it and no amount of insight in its philosophy, context and composer is going to change that. That's the great thing about art, it's not science. Follow your gut feeling, follow your own thoughts about what is good and what isn't, independent of the opinion of others. Facts are facts, philosophy is philosophy, context is context, but let your individual preference speak.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

I have no idea if Cage was a genius, i.e. had intelligence far enough above the mean to fall into that category. I do think he seriously asked himself serious questions about the nature of the term 'music'... and then set off on a sidepath.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Pierre Boulez on John Cage: "He was refreshing but not very bright. His freshness came from an absence of knowledge."


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## Guest (May 28, 2015)

Ukko said:


> I have no idea if Cage was a genius, i.e. had intelligence far enough above the mean to fall into that category. I do think he seriously asked himself serious questions about the nature of the term 'music'... *and then set off on a sidepath*.


[...] _and then set off on a sidepath_ seeking mushrooms.


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## Guest (May 28, 2015)

KenOC said:


> Pierre Boulez on John Cage: "He was refreshing but not very bright. His freshness came from an absence of knowledge."


Was that _before_ or _after_ they slept together?


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

:lol: :lol: :lol:


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

TalkingHead said:


> Was that _before_ or _after_ they slept together?


How do you know they did that - were you perhaps watching?

(Oops, wrong thread)


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Thanks for your compliments, Art Music and Ingelou. What I wrote was indeed a mix of history and opinion. I can't summarise everything on Cage, this is why for example I left out Zen totally, but it was a very important factor in his world view. No summary of any sources is as good as reading it yourself. I am also far from being an expert on his music, however I have some of his music on disc and also made the effort to go to concerts if his music is featured.

There is a lot of controversy and emotion surrounding him, and he was a complex person, both as a composer and otherwise. So its better to approach him as befitting every listener's own individual needs.

I think that what Wooduck said in his last post is important. Its not only those who like Cage or avant-garde music who are interest in this issues.

I would reiterate that the broader Modernist movement - and also Post-Modernists, who Cage influenced a lot too - has had its own debates on it. In my last post, I omitted to say that Varese and Ligeti where two other high profile Modernists who both disagreed with Cage's views on both how he ordered sounds and also on his opinion of art and life being inseparable. Opinions aren't fixed, so again the debates that Cage was part of with composers and others are impossible to summarise in one post.

I also think there are many connections with Cage that are not discussed on this forum, such as how Henry Cowell for example taught him, but also taught others who where very different, like Burt Bacharach. Although Milhaud taught him for a longer period, Cowell (and also Martinu) had impacts on Bacharach. Cowell started the first new music group on the West Coast, and gave performances of new music (including the premiere of Cage's first piece) in the 1920's and '30's. Later in the 1950's Bacharach attended premieres of avant-garde music in New York (including with Cage conducting his own music) which Cowell also attended. Ultimately Bacharach decided his future lay elsewhere, in the popular realm.

Why I mention this is that my view is to look at connections rather than dividing lines between things that are very different. At the same time, its no use to ignore or downplay the dividing lines either. These are controversial issues that will always be up for debate, amongst musicians and listeners.

I will leave it for now with a quote by Cage himself about _4'33"_ and how he saw it as meditation, which is how many people on this forum see this piece. I can understand that opinion, both from him and members of TC, but my own view is that meditation doesn't amount to what I call music. Art and life are separate things as far as I am concerned. That was what Cage was most consistent about across his long career, although the way he carried it out in his music kept changing.

_*"No day goes by without my making use of that piece in my life and in my work. I listen to it, every day...I don't sit down to do it, I turn my attention toward it and realise that its going on continuously...It leads out of the world of art into the whole of life."*_


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

While things have calmed down a bit, I'd just like to remind people that this thread concerns the music and mind of John Cage. Have fun discussing related topics or any other topics as long as you don't discuss other members in a negative light.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

dogen said:


> Really?! That sounds like an impressive bit of mental gymnastics on the part of Cage. Or merely hypocritical?


What I give credit for Cage is that he tended to speak his mind. However as I said he did a lot of interviews, and he was also a writer. I think he's contradictory but not necessarily hypocritical. Perhaps the way in which the contradictions tend to happen even in the same interview is a sign of how he was thinking out aloud, trying hard not to impose restrictions on the boundary between thought and speech, and also on how he couldn't resolve all of the complex questions he was posing.

Some big ones are his position on recorded music. He was part of the subculture where recordings of new music where distributed on tape, but then he said that he was against his own works being recorded. He once visited a lady's house and she put on some of his music, but he couldn't recognise it.

In the piece Credo in US, composed in the early 1940's, he used other composers music - particularly the classical canon - by having records played, as a kind of anarchic dicing up of tradition. This is one of his better known works and in one of its initial performances, Stravinsky's Rite was used for the purpose, and Cage said he did it to subvert what had become a Modern classic.

His opinions about his one time teacher Schoenberg varied. I've seen him praise the man for opening things up to him, and also for being too narrow and hidebound to tradition.

The issue is that Cage was largely self taught and he was interested in many things, he liked to branch out. Zen is a topic that's out of my league to talk about much but that aim at detachment is a big issue here. So too the disillusionment many in the world, including the USA, experienced after WWII. With the Holocaust, the atom bomb being dropped on Hiroshima, the use of technology for conflict and destruction in Western civilisation meant that many creative people began to move towards Eastern philosophies to find a way out of the mess which was apparent to them. So aspects of that earlier anarchism and technological utopianism had to be adapted or at least coexist with these new realities.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

And of course contradictions & surprising negatives are part of Eastern philosophies...


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

Sometimes I do not mind being called a jerk.  From some I would consider it a complement.


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

Woodduck said:


> You've made perfect sense, as I read you. I agree at the outset that 4'33" and what it means or doesn't mean casts a shadow over Cage's actual musical achievement, that it was not intended by Cage to be central to that achievement, and that this situation is no doubt unfair to him. We might explain the peculiar reputation of that one-time experiment - its notoriety and prominence - mainly by reference to its uniqueness and extremity. We may also explain it by reference to its legitimate status as a philosophical provocation: is it music, and what is music anyway? I dare say no other work which calls itself, or which is called, music presents that provocation so starkly. I was only intending to point out that this latter aspect of it, while extreme, is consistent with the increasing prominence of theory in the way the arts presented themselves to the public during the 20th century. And certainly Cage was a prominent participant in this trend.
> 
> In most cases artists (and critics) talk about art mainly as a response to the art itself, which arises out of urges for expression which largely precede the formulation of ideas about it. But as the 20th century wore on it seemed that the tail came to wag the dog, and it became almost obligatory to look for an accompanying conceptual frame in which to place first the experience of art, and then, even, the actual creation of it. As you point out, we can trace this trend farther back, into the 19th century; Wagner is certainly a prototype of the artist as intellectual, who did in fact lay out and publish theories describing in detail what he intended to do and why. He was attacked for his "system" of composing (mainly the use of leitmotiv), but of course it didn't take people long to get used to it and even to begin oversimplifying its significance, which understandably chagrined the composer (but must have been satisfying to him as well). Wagner, however, was not typical of his time in his need to philosophize about his work; he just seemed to need to do it to keep the juices flowing. His real contribution to the explosion of words which followed him was not primarily his words but his music, which laid down challenges of all sorts, the most consequential of which was the enormous expansion of harmony and the concept of tonality. But this is getting off on a tangent, and I really didn't intend to go there.
> 
> ...


_So obviously I haven't been in this thread for a little while, mainly because I feel like my objective in participating was achieved. This thread does actually appear to be turned away from its original and unfortunate purpose, and now it is more or less in the vein of good discussion, and that was really all I wanted: to see a John Cage thread that wasn't made up entirely of ill-informed jokes and mean-spirited remarks from one camp and somewhat understandable frustration followed by petulant whining from the other. But I do owe Woodduck, who presumably spent quite some time in writing the substantial post I have quoted, a response._

I agree with much of what you have said, so I will mainly respond to the part in bold, which I think is a valuable question.

Time does work wonders, but we are only so confident of the superiority of ages past because there is enough time between them and when we are to have filtered out all the "unnecessaries," not so with the 20th century. Cage has only been dead for little over twenty years, and a lot of people are still trying to come to grips with music that was old sixty years ago. As I said in my previous post, this has a lot to do with one radical musical development leading to another, and also with the confluence of these developments with equally radical developments in technology. The explanations and the philosophical tracts and treatises and speeches and public discussions and so forth were all necessary because these developments were esoteric, peculiar to the cutting edge formed by leaders of artistic tradition and technological industry working in tandem. I do believe there will be a time when the extramusical back and forth will be in the history books but not presented as an integral component of the listening experience, but I doubt I will live to see it, for if we can still be outraged and dumbfounded by Schoenberg, Cage will have to wait a good while.


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## Guest (May 29, 2015)

Crudblud said:


> _f we can still be outraged and dumbfounded by Schoenberg, Cage will have to wait a good while._


_I could easily have just clicked "Like." But I wanted to pull this gem out for further contemplation._


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

SimonNZ said:


> Are you Woodduck's personal cheerleader? You turn up in these discussions to say nothing more than "Gimme a W! Gimme an O!"


Much exaggerated.

Woodduck has far too little affectation for my taste.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

some guy said:


> It is curious that someone who actually knew Cage, who has read many books both by and about him, who has been to numerous concerts that have included works by Cage--including one just a couple of weeks ago--who has performed _4'33"_ several times, with various ensembles, who has had many lengthy conversations with several composers and performers who also knew Cage and who perform his music regularly... it is curious that that person can have spent many thousands of pixels carefully correcting statements of fact and rebutting statements of opinion to so little avail.
> 
> It is as if expertise--and there are countless examples of this, all over the net--were a handicap. What's important in these discussions is that *certain points of view get all the love, no matter how poorly presented or researched or validated,* while more accurate and more carefully and sympathetically thought out views don't seem to be able to get any traction at all. Here, it's the idea that Cage's indeterminate compositions are less musical than his more determinate ones, that _4'33"_ was a one-off and not important either to musical history or to Cage himself, that his ideas are more interesting than his music, such as it is.
> 
> ...


When I first read this, it made me feel upset and it still does. While I respect your opinions on John Cage, I cannot accept these assertions. They are simply not true in terms of the effort and time I put into these posts

I aimed at being balanced and positive. I avoided clichés, and gave many examples, facts and quotes to support my argument. Many of my posts in topics like this follow an essay format.

I could have been much harder on Cage.

I didn't go into Cage's more dogmatic and provocative opinions, nor did I linger too much on his judgements of other composers. I didn't give examples of the way he gauged audience reaction to his music and in turn reacted to it in what he did next. Nor his obvious love of the limelight and skill with getting exposure in the media and his ability to network with influential dealers, critics and patrons of the arts scene.

Based on this I could have called him shrewd, calculating, self centred, dogmatic, arrogant, an opportunist, an elitist, a phony and indeed hypocritical, or as the cliché goes, a charlatan. But like most composers he was neither a saint nor a sinner. He was a complex individual, in between these extremes.

The fact that I didn't go down this negative path shows that I wanted to do something different, to contribute something more balanced and positive. I didn't want to implicitly insult those who have other opinions to me on controversial topics like this.

I don't expect all members of the forum to go to such great lengths. I also realize that not everyone approaches music the same way I do. That's okay. However, we are all equal and can give our opinions within the rules of the forum.

Nobody is unbiased, but it's the grey areas between these sorts of facts and conclusions that provides room for nuanced and interesting debates. Such a debate has happened on this thread, and it's a vast improvement on similar threads in the past two years. Even to recall those makes me bitter.

Despite the overall improvement now at TC, I think its still wise for me to avoid participation in such topics, even though I am interested in them.

Everyone has to draw a line somewhere, and in this thread I have attempted to demonstrate where it lies in terms of Cage's legacy. I think that it's only a line drawn in the sand, not set in concrete. This is a matter for every individual to decide individually, and although its only theoretical, I think its important because it has implications on all of our discussions of controversial topics like this.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

some guy said:


> It is curious that someone who actually knew Cage, who has read many books both by and about him, who has been to numerous concerts that have included works by Cage--including one just a couple of weeks ago--who has performed _4'33"_ several times, with various ensembles, who has had many lengthy conversations with several composers and performers who also knew Cage and who perform his music regularly... it is curious that that person can have spent many thousands of pixels carefully correcting statements of fact and rebutting statements of opinion to so little avail.
> 
> It is as if expertise--and there are countless examples of this, all over the net--were a handicap. What's important in these discussions is that certain points of view get all the love, no matter how poorly presented or researched or validated, while more accurate and more carefully and sympathetically thought out views don't seem to be able to get any traction at all.
> ...
> ...





Sid James said:


> When I first read this, it made me feel upset and it still does. While I respect your opinions on John Cage, I cannot accept these assertions. They are simply not true in terms of the effort and time I put into these posts
> 
> I aimed at being balanced and positive. I avoided clichés, and gave many examples, facts and quotes to support my argument. Many of my posts in topics like this follow an essay format...


Exactly - that is why I like (& 'liked') this thread: because it does contain some thoughtful, rational and balanced posts.

And while I look forward to reading the 'similar threads' and links that have been provided, *every thread is its own discussion*, and nobody has a sole authority or right to pronounce on Cage - *not even Cage himself, if he were here*!

Neither can every post do justice to all the differing qualities of a composer's contribution or career; I'm happy when a post makes sense, provides insight, shows no prejudice and is polite. _*Having known the composer in question*_ isn't an essential qualification, although of course, it's interesting.

I expect that Crudblud, Woodduck, Sid James, and some guy too have probably said what they wanted to say on this one. :tiphat: It's been good - and I just hope that if anyone else wants to start a rational discussion of Cage or any other modern composer, they won't be put off by the 'past history' of such threads.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

some guy said:


> So here's what I would say that I don't think I've mentioned before--that if Cage were interested in any one, single thing above all others, that thing would be discipline. Not freedom. Nor control, either one. Discipline. His whole life is one long illustration of that one consistent idea.


I see what you mean, and he was very disciplined, but I think the main thing would be "play," and the joy of creation. In academia, and the 'academy,' it's so serious. This concept of 'play' does not bode well with teachers and academicians.

So, you see, it's a fine line between 'play' and being a complete fool. But creation and discovery must be spontaneous, and the result of genuine curiosity. If 'discipline' is what drives that curiosity, I can agree.

"Play" is the most serious thing one can do.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

TalkingHead said:


> Was that _before_ or _after_ they slept together?


Here's the complete quote: _"He was refreshing but not very bright. His freshness came from an absence of knowledge. But God, he was a great kisser, and he could make a helluva kung pao chicken._"  :lol:


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## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

To put it simply. I feel that I can't compose as well as Cage does, so I feel best watching and enjoying his compositions and not maligning him.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I have mentioned this before. I have discussed my failed attempts at composition. Even the worst work of Cage is a gazillion times better than any of the garbage I composed.


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## Richannes Wrahms (Jan 6, 2014)

^Incidentally, Schoenberg was convinced that even the sub-mediocre could be taught to compose nice music. Of course he was also convinced that only for whom composing is an inner impulse can really survive as professional composers, from that is where the "My purpose in teaching you is to make it impossible for you to write music (...)" comes from.


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

arpeggio said:


> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> I have mentioned this before. I have discussed my failed attempts at composition. Even the worst work of Cage is a gazillion times better than any of the garbage I composed.


You got two really mean likes for this post.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Ingélou said:


> Exactly - that is why I like (& 'liked') this thread: because it does contain some thoughtful, rational and balanced posts.
> 
> And while I look forward to reading the 'similar threads' and links that have been provided, *every thread is its own discussion*, and nobody has a sole authority or right to pronounce on Cage - *not even Cage himself, if he were here*!
> 
> ...


Thanks for your conciliatory remarks, Ingelou.

For me at least, any effort into further pushing the historical or contextual view of music on this forum, its definitely over. It doesn't fit into the general formalist trend here, and as they say _When in Rome, do as the Romans do_. It also doesn't pay to question the power structures underlying classical music.

If taken to an extreme, formalist and contextual approaches are two opposite polarities, and this will be reflected particularly in the controversial topics here. However, they can compliment eachother as well and also provide opportunity for more nuanced discussion.

A certain degree of group loyalty is inevitable in music as in other areas of life. I don't enjoy getting in the crossfire of these heated discussions, and neither am I going to go beyond my reach - as was demonstrated last week - and try to summarise complex topics into a series of posts.

If people have an interest in the biographies and histories surrounding music, its best to access resources yourself and make up your own mind about these things. Make your own connections based on your own needs and priorities, just as with what you select for listening.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

By pure accident I've discovered a passage about Django Reinhardt in book that is interesting:

_In Samois, he was no longer the Django of old. He was un autre homme-another man, a new man. He was now a poet. He had the time to look at the beauty of the world around him. In the evening, he might remain at the edge of the rivere until three in the morning. He wawrched the river, the movement fot the trees, the concert made by the water, and he told me that there he saw the true music, he heard it all, he was crazy for it. He said to me, "here is the true music!"_

As I've said in a comment other musicians said similar things, it's another evidence of the fact that the idea behind 4'33 wasn't something that nobody had never thought of.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

^I also come across similar things. Developing perception has this aspect of not only being open to and attuned to what is around us, but also being absorbed by it. I think that creative people of all times have, by the nature of their work, been in some way aware of this kind of development of perception.

Cage wasn't the first to do this of course, but he did make an impact in trying to draw people's attention to it.

The early 20th century art historian Bernard Berenson described this as "Itness." Here is a quote from Berenson's _Sketch for a Self-Portrait _(published 1949) speaking to this issue, albeit more from the point of view of a visual artist than a musician:

_In childhood and boyhood this ecstasy overtook me when I was happy out of doors...It was a morning in early summer. A silver haze shimmered and trembled over the lime trees. The air was laden with their fragrance. The temperature was like a caress. I remember - I need not recall - that I climbed up a tree stump and feld suddenly immersed in Itness. I did not call it by that name. I had no need for words. It and I were one._

*A note to anybody inclined to take up arms on this, no need to waste your energy as I am only adding to what Norman said. I don't intend to debate the issue anymore, especially if it is likely to lead to further confrontations.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Exploring connections..
'Itness' - sounds a bit like Duns Scotus's 'haecceitas', the individual & striking nature of each thing in the world. This was an idea taken up by Gerard Manley Hopkins in his poetry - an intense awareness of the nature of things becomes a mystical experience.

In Seamus Heaney's poems, it is 'the music of what is'.

My favourite sonnet of Hopkins that expresses this view:

AS kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies dráw fláme;	
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells	
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's	
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;	
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same: 5
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;	
Selves-goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,	
Crying Whát I do is me: for that I came.

Í say móre: the just man justices;	
Kéeps gráce: thát keeps all his goings graces; 10
Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is-	
Chríst-for Christ plays in ten thousand places,	
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his	
To the Father through the features of men's faces.	


I think the mystical experience is not tied to any race, philosophy, religion or art form - we have all had it. And the idea behind 4'33" is worth restating, even if Cage was not the first.
But I'm more interested in his other work.


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## Guest (Jun 11, 2015)

Cage is one of those composers that can't simply be written off by a single stylistic criticism - his life's work was too varied for that.

Although many of his important works involve ensembles, voices, or electronics, I find that his evolution can be observed with a fair amount of accuracy by simply looking at the progression of his piano music. From _In A Landscape_ to _The Perilous Night_ to _Music For Piano_ to the _Etudes Australes_ to _ASLSP_ to _One_.... you can't bundle up all those works under one sweeping statement.


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