# The Boundaries of Music



## mmsbls

There have been threads on TC attempting to define music. Basically people have asked, “What is music?” In this thread I’m asking for something slightly different – statements of what music is not. More specifically, I’d like to see where TC members draw the boundaries of music. I’d like people to either select an actual work or describe a theoretical work and explain why they think that work is not music. It might be better to select or describe works that you think others believe are (or would be) music.

I believe Cage’s 4’33” is not music. I think the work is interesting, and I’m glad I am aware of it. I do not think the work is crap, garbage, useless, or many other potential derogatory terms. I just think 4’33” is philosophy rather than music. Cage is partly stating his view of music and calling our attention to something we generally do not hear. For me the work is not music because the composer or creator has no control over the sounds that are heard during the performance. For me musical sounds must be a least somewhat intentional. 

So please, let me know where you draw the boundaries of music.


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## Guest

mmsbls said:


> For me the work is not music because the composer or creator has no control over the sounds that are heard during the performance. For me musical sounds must be a least somewhat intentional.


Speaking entirely personally - I'm not advancing a theory of music for all, only the boundaries of what I will listen to more than once - there are three conditions.

First, as given by mmsbls, there must be some intentional control of the sounds. Second, the sounds used must, in themselves, offer something engaging, attractive, interesting and, inextricably connected the third condition is that it has a positive effect on me, the listener.

Eno's _Music for Airports_ sits at the boundary for me, as it is both controlled and random, and there is just enough 'movement' in the work to hold my interest.


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## science

I think silence is as important as sound in music - or rather, it is a sound, analogous to zero as a number and black as a color - so Cage's work is fine with me at first glance. There are extra-musical elements that are ok with me just as all the extra-musical rigamarole that goes with any performance is ok with me. It's not a work that I feel I need to analyze deeply or hear many times, but it is music. 

Intentionality is a great issue - I'd say that music (the manipulation of sound without verbal meaning) exists between an ideal pole of total intentionality and total happenstance. Humans being messy things even at our best, no performance will ever achieve total intentionality even if that's the goal, and I don't see any reason that it should be. To be "music" rather than other kinds of sounds, I'd say a human being needs to manipulate the sound (even if it's silence or apparently random noise) in some way with some degree of intention.


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## PetrB

The meanest, leanest and most apt definition I've heard -- the three elements present in any and all music, from any culture, all genres:

Pitch ~ duration ~ intensity. (Silence is part of this of course, from the smallest pause at the end of a phrase, longer rests, or more profound lengths of it... and I would only add one further qualification under pitch, i.e. from specific to less to non-specific.)

The premise it is generated and organized by people is central to the idea of "music." (No human ever 'randomly generates' anything, even in an improvised playing session. No human creates a _wholly_ 'random generating' bit of software, either, at least not on that grand universe cosmic scale 

[When we read the stock phrase, "the music of nature" that does not refer to music, but to the human mind perceiving what it hears, imposing a sort of sense of order upon the sounds of nature. Birds + wind rustling leaves of the trees + water running over rocks _is not music,_ but we perceive it as _musical._]

I think any further qualifications become instantly culture-centric, or are about personal preferences based upon sentiment, aesthetic, socio-political or philosophical aspects, and the moment those enter into play, some horribly oversensitive souls will start crying exclusive / inclusive -- class issues, or some other rot 

It is just 'organized' relatively pitched sounds, folks.


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## PetrB

MacLeod said:


> Speaking entirely personally - I'm not advancing a theory of music for all, only the boundaries of what I will listen to more than once - there are three conditions.
> 
> First, as given by mmsbls, there must be some intentional control of the sounds. Second, the sounds used must, in themselves, offer something engaging, attractive, interesting and, inextricably connected the third condition is that it has a positive effect on me, the listener.
> 
> Eno's _Music for Airports_ sits at the boundary for me, as it is both controlled and random, and there is just enough 'movement' in the work to hold my interest.


When this piece was made, it was done with electronic sound generators, perhaps some taped sounds, but all if it was painstakingly assembled, individual tracks recorded, spliced, coordinated to be in sync with the other tracks, etc.

I really don't think 'random' was any part of it, nor is it at all pertinent to the piece.


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## Guest

PetrB said:


> When this piece was made, it was done with electronic sound generators, perhaps some taped sounds, but all if it was painstakingly assembled, individual tracks recorded, spliced, coordinated to be in sync with the other tracks, etc.
> 
> I really don't think 'random' was any part of it, nor is it at all pertinent to the piece.


If you read the article I linked to, it suggests that 'random' is intrinsic to the piece.


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## Guest

I'm still waiting for MacLeod's third condition.

In the meantime, it might be as well to look at this intention thing. Seems to me it's an epistemological thing. How do you know whether any given sound or sequence of sounds was intended or not? Sure, you can read about it. And it seems to me that way too many people read about Cage, and misunderstand what he was doing, than actually just sit down and listen. If you were to do that, you would hear sounds and, on a recording, those sounds would occur in the same order every time. How do you know, unless you go outside the listening experience itself, whether or not Cage was controlling each and every one of those sounds? Maybe the question should be "Why do you go outside the listening experience?"

What I would suggest is that you read about Baroque music instead. Because there you would find that the idea of improvisation is very strong, with scores as reminders to the improvisors to do this or that thing at this or that time. Once you've assimilated the idea of a Baroque score as a suggestion, I'd recommend listening to some cadenzas. Pre-Beethoven, to start. Those are post-Baroque leftovers. Little moments in a work with a different idea about what a score is. Little moments when a performer does something other than what a composer has any control over. Beethoven would change that, making the cadenza a written out thing. And starting this whole idea that the composer must intend everything we hear or we're just not gonna accept that it's music.

Baroque composers would have found that a very peculiar idea indeed.

Any improvisor's gonna find that a very peculiar idea, too.

But, "oh well."

As for Cage's pieces post-1951 being more philosophy than music, that can only come from a very strange idea about what music and philosophy are. Cage was a composer. He wrote music that was published by a big, famous publishing house. He thought of himself as a composer. He was also a polymath. He was a painter, too. And a writer. And he wrote about, among other things, music. Well, so did Berlioz. Do you ever hear anyone say that Berlioz' opera _Benvenuto Cellini_ is more philosophy than music? Partch wrote a good deal about music, too. Do you ever hear anyone say that Partch's _Delusion of the Fury_ is more philosophy than music?

And what about Beethoven? He wrote a lot about music, too. His ninth symphony is even more full of philosophy than either of the works I've mentioned so far. And yet....

Anyway, if you must read something about Cage, I would suggest that you read _The music of John Cage_ by James Pritchett, who treats Cage as a composer, both before and after 1951, and who treats the whole philosophy thing as a critical failure to come to terms with Cage's practices as a composer. And you don't even have to read the whole book. The introduction takes care of this particular issue all by itself.


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## Guest

My third condition is in there...



> Second, the sounds used must, in themselves, offer something engaging, attractive, interesting *and*, inextricably connected *the third condition is *that it has a positive effect on me, the listener.


some guy is right to query what is meant by 'intention' but in doing so, he introduces (deliberately, I'm sure) the connections between the music, those who compose it and those who play it - a complicated interrelationship.

I'm only interested in describing the boundaries of music at the point of my listening, which I can see undermines my condition of 'intention'. Perhaps 'organisation' is a better term.


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## Svelte Silhouette

My wife has all of these from the Eno Ambient series so I'll let you know how random they are if I'm alive to tell the tale in 3 hours or so :lol:

I suspect they will define the boundaries of my listening


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## GGluek

There are two parts to the question:

1 What is "music" in the larger sense.

2 What are the boundaries of music you listen to.

The first I'll leave to the many other fine posters here who are doing a good job discussing it. As for the second, there are things I don't enjoy, although they are still classified as music (progressive jazz is often one), and there are things that, while technically music, don't fit my personal definition. One of these is rap music, which, to me, is more like poetry with a beat, ie there isn't a lot of musical interest in it in terms of themes, variety, development over time, etc. To the listener, I gather that the words are more important than any purely musical content (but I may be wrong there).


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## PetrB

MacLeod said:


> If you read the article I linked to, it suggests that 'random' is intrinsic to the piece.


I think random is often misused when it comes to art, improvisation, etc. I prefer to use _arbitrary,_ and even that is rather loaded, being what seems like less than 'procedural' choices. I.e. procedure referring to music, classical or otherwise, which is organized in a way meeting more usual expectations of common practice music, which includes normal formats of pop music, music in other genres.

The idea that 'another note or choice' would have done _just as well as the one chosen_ in a piece is part of the feeling, or intent, of 'arbitrary' (or 'random,' if you will.) Both _arbitrary_ and _random_ come up as criticisms of badly written music in those older formats, meaning the music _lacks direction or musical logic,_ while ambient music revels in that arbitrariness, sounding less 'logical' to us, more intuitive, perhaps, and certainly far more relaxed and less planned than formal music, classical, or that same formal as applied to how most expect music to proceed, folk tune or symphony.


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## Guest

PetrB said:


> I think random is often misused when it comes to art, improvisation, etc. I prefer to use _arbitrary,_ and even that is rather loaded, being what seems like less than 'procedural' choices, and that procedure really referring to music, classical or otherwise, which was organized in a way meeting our expectations of common practice music, which includes normal formats of pop music, music in other genres.
> 
> The idea that 'another note or choice' would have done _just as well as the one chosen_ is part of the feeling, or intent, of 'arbitrary' (or 'random,' if you will.) Both _arbitrary_ and _random_ come up as criticisms of badly written music in those older formats, meaning the music _lacks direction or musical logic._.
> 
> Ambient music revels in that arbitrariness, sounding less 'logical' to us, more intuitive, perhaps, and certainly far more relaxed and less planned than formal music, classical, or that same formal as applied to how most expect music to proceed, folk tune or symphony.


I'm not sure I fully understand this.

If Eno made two tape loops containing recorded sounds, but of different lengths, the subsequent 'music' is random in the sense that the composer is leaving the actual sequence of sounds to chance, since the loops do not synchronise - though (and I'm not a mathematician) the sounds might recur over a long repeat. There is planned content in terms of the sounds on each loop. That is why I gave this as an example of my boundary, though I daresay it could be tested in practice by someone offering something even more random.

But it's actually the interaction of my three conditions that's important. If Eno had recorded babies screaming on the loops, I wouldn't want to listen!


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## mmsbls

MacLeod said:


> If Eno made two tape loops containing recorded sounds, but of different lengths, the subsequent 'music' is random in the sense that the composer is leaving the actual sequence of sounds to chance, since the loops do not synchronise - though (and I'm not a mathematician) the sounds might recur over a long repeat. There is planned content in terms of the sounds on each loop. That is why I gave this as an example of my boundary, though I daresay it could be tested in practice by someone offering something even more random.


If I understand the article correctly, Eno intentionally chose the timing of the taped portions of the work. He presumably chose the timing to get a particular effect. I would not call that random. The 3 parts referred to in the article remain out of sync throughout the work, and perhaps the listener hears sounds that appear random. But Eno apparently _chose_ the sounds to be the way they are.


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## Guest

mmsbls said:


> If I understand the article correctly, Eno intentionally chose the timing of the taped portions of the work. He presumably chose the timing to get a particular effect. I would not call that random. The 3 parts referred to in the article remain out of sync throughout the work, and perhaps the listener hears sounds that appear random. But Eno apparently _chose_ the sounds to be the way they are.


But he couldn't predict the outcome to anythng like the same degree as a conventional composer who writes out a score with explicit instructions about which instrument will play when, for how long and with which other instruments.

Am I making some mistake in using a technical word in a non-technical sense? I'm not suggesting that the entire process generates wholly random outcomes - I thought I'd already made that clear.


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## mmsbls

some guy said:


> In the meantime, it might be as well to look at this intention thing. Seems to me it's an epistemological thing. How do you know whether any given sound or sequence of sounds was intended or not?


I assume Cage did not have the ability to explicitly control other peoples' actions. He had no way of knowing what sounds would be created by the environment (including listeners). But more generally, my point is that _if a given set of sounds are not intended by the creators_, I do not consider those sounds to be music.



some guy said:


> Because there you would find that the idea of improvisation is very strong, with scores as reminders to the improvisors to do this or that thing at this or that time.


Improvisation is clearly intentional music. The creators of the work, the composer and performer(s), intended the sounds to be as they are.



some guy said:


> As for Cage's pieces post-1951 being more philosophy than music, that can only come from a very strange idea about what music and philosophy are. Cage was a composer.


Cage was without question a composer. I simply believe that the one piece, 4'33", is a philosophical work making a statement about sounds rather than being music.


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## mmsbls

MacLeod said:


> But he couldn't predict the outcome to anythng like the same degree as a conventional composer who writes out a score with explicit instructions about which instrument will play when, for how long and with which other instruments.
> 
> Am I making some mistake in using a technical word in a non-technical sense? I'm not suggesting that the entire process generates wholly random outcomes - I thought I'd already made that clear.


I understand your sense of the word random now. I did take it in the technical sense before. In choosing the timing of the loops Eno likely had less certainty about how the result would sound than for other music he wrote. Of course, he might have listened to a number of different timings and chosen the one he liked the most. If so, he did intend for the music to sound as it does.


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## Ukko

This is a good subject for group discussion - in person. the inherent vagaries in written communication, including the delays that allow ideas to percolate unilaterally, well, good luck with it guys. Try not to get torqued too tight.


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## millionrainbows

mmsbls said:


> I believe Cage's 4'33" is not music. For me the work is not music because the composer or creator has no control over the sounds that are heard during the performance. For me musical sounds must be a least somewhat intentional.


First off, what are you talking about? An "object" called 4'33"? Or as an "idea"?

* Sorry; 4'33" is a performance in which actual sounds take place. I*t can only exist in the 'now,' and it will always be different, not only because the sounds will be different, but because the listeners will always be different.

*4'33" is essentially a work about sounds, not silence, philosophy, or ideas.
*
Okay, I'll play the game of 'objectifying' 4'33" as if it were a stable, concrete 'object,' although it is clearly not.

You are expecting 4'33" to be something it is not: intentionally created sounds.

You state that _"the composer or creator has no control over the sounds that are heard during the performance." _This is misleading, because *the composer has prescribed a time-frame *in which the sounds take place, and this is the key to understanding the work.

In this case,_ the listener has 'control' over the sounds he hears,_ in that *he can imbue them with meaning, and see them as relating to other sounds occurring.
*
Cage's intent was to 'liberate sound' from the intention of the composer's ego. It is still sound, however.

So now, we must question your premise further:_ is there any music which is 'totally determined'?_

Only within prescribed bounds, because performances will always vary. Music, even if 'totally' determined and scored, is still an imperfect approximation of an 'idea' about sound.

So Cage's 4'33" is no different than any other 'determined' music, except that it is at the far end of the spectrum of determinacy/indeterminacy.

Also, Cage has reversed the Western idea of music/composer and observer/listener. The listener is now shown that sound is everywhere, and does not need a composer's intention in order for it to be heard as 'meaningful sound.' Actually, this demands much from a listener, as being receptive and seeking meaning in sound.

This reversal of subject/object puts the focus on our _subjective_ experience of sound, and does not concern itself with any sort of 'objectified' interaction with 'music.'

This 'subjective' experience of sound is more important today than ever, because of recording, and how recording turns the experience of music into an 'object.'

So Cage is doing us a favor, by taking the emphasis off of music as an 'object,' and transforming it back into a subjective experience of sound.



mmsbls said:


> I just think *4'33" is philosophy rather than music.* Cage is...stating his view of music...


That statement implies that 4'33" is "all philosophy" and no sound. _*4'33" consists of tangible, concrete sounds which occur during that time. There is no such thing as silence, so sounds will occur during any performance of 4'33".

*_Yes, they are or will be* undetermined *sounds, but they are sounds, not philosophy.

This is no reason to criticize 4'33" for exemplifying a 'philosophy,' all Western music is expressing an inherent 'philosophy' or ideology.

*4'33" is essentially a work about sounds, not silence, philosophy, or ideas.*


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## millionrainbows

PetrB said:


> [When we read the stock phrase, "the music of nature" that does not refer to music, but to the human mind perceiving what it hears, imposing a sort of sense of order upon the sounds of nature. Birds + wind rustling leaves of the trees + water running over rocks _is not music,_ but we perceive it as _musical._]


Music is sound, and "Birds + wind rustling leaves of the trees + water running over rocks" is sound.

Are you implying that *music is not sound?

*You seem to be saying that 'music' is sound which is perceived as being 'musical.' Why are the sounds of nature excluded?

If so, then you are not concerned with 'sound,' but with intentions and abstract ideas of what music is supposed to be. But not with sound.

To me, music is sound.


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## rrudolph

"Everything we do is music, and everywhere is the best seat." — John Cage


Issue resolved.


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## PetrB

MacLeod said:


> I'm not sure I fully understand this.
> 
> If Eno made two tape loops containing recorded sounds, but of different lengths, the subsequent 'music' is random in the sense that the composer is leaving the actual sequence of sounds to chance, since the loops do not synchronise.... There is planned content in terms of the sounds on each loop. That is why I gave this as an example of my boundary, though I daresay it could be tested in practice by someone offering something even more random.


This difference in discussion is truly semantic. Eno "Made" two tape loops, and there is an additional near virtual guarantee the composer chose a segment or segments of the two running loop, _i.e. he made editorial choice(s) If he flipped a coin to make those choices, or just accepted what came down the road, he was still fully instrumental in setting them all up to begin with._

Eno did not find random tape loops on the sidewalk. He created several tape loops. He then set them up to run. He then auditioned those loops when they were running. Letting them run, and perhaps their being of different lengths, or their running out of sync is where he left a bit up to chance, or more truly, a mechanical process, for results.

All those willful efforts, a little bit of arbitrariness as to a couple of tape loops and their playback devices, the additional elements (voice and I think one other timbrel group) also thought about and placed in by editorial choices, leaves really _nothing_ "random" about the recorded piece as a final product.


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## PetrB

mmsbls said:


> I believe Cage's 4'33" is not music. I think the work is interesting, and I'm glad I am aware of it. I do not think the work is crap, garbage, useless, or many other potential derogatory terms. I just think 4'33" is philosophy rather than music.


Well, any piece unperformed, i.e. just the score, the idea, is a concept only, or philosophical, if you will or must.

Cage's 4'33'' is, like any other piece, meant to be performed. The ambient sound in the room or hall (moving air, even if there is no audience) plus whatever happens within that 4'33'' -- which in the score is divided into movements, the performer meant to convey the breaks -- is the sound of the piece, Ergo, music, not "philosophy." (Only a live recording in a hall with an audience could do the piece justice: *a recording with 'nothing' on it would not be a recording of 4'33''*)

This piece and what it is (music) is so often misunderstood that the misunderstanding about it cannot be corrected often enough.


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## millionrainbows

MacLeod said:


> I'm not sure I fully understand this.
> 
> If Eno made two tape loops containing recorded sounds, but of different lengths, the subsequent 'music' is random in the sense that the composer is leaving the actual sequence of sounds to chance, since the loops do not synchronise - though (and I'm not a mathematician) the sounds might recur over a long repeat. There is planned content in terms of the sounds on each loop. That is why I gave this as an example of my boundary, though I daresay it could be tested in practice by someone offering something even more random.
> 
> But it's actually the interaction of my three conditions that's important. If Eno had recorded babies screaming on the loops, I wouldn't want to listen!


1. Eno chose the scale that the loops would be derived from; each loop contained only one note, such as a C or D. Seven loops would be needed to create an entire diatonic scale.

2. The length of the loop determined how often the note would be heard; so if he wanted to reinforce a tonal center, or emphasize one note over another, then he could make that loop shorter, so it would repeat more often.

3. He wanted the music to be relaxing and unobtrusive, so the sound are very soft and gentle.

So there are many 'determined' element in this piece. "Random" is not necessarily a dirty word.

Any criticism of this piece for containing random elements would be once again an example of how Western listeners do not understand the Eastern idea of "passiveness" and non-interference. They expect everything to be tightly controlled.


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## Guest

millionrainbows said:


> This is once again an example of how Western listeners do not understand the Eastern idea of "passiveness" and non-interference. They expect everything to be tightly controlled.


This is an example of what I like to listen to and an example that is intended to show my personal 'boundaries' (see the OP).

I think it's time someone else offered their own boundaries!


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## millionrainbows

PetrB said:


> Only a live recording in a hall with an audience could do the piece justice: *a recording with 'nothing' on it would not be a recording of 4'33''.*


There is no such thing as silence. A recording with 'nothing' on it cannot really exist, because you would hear some sort of noise: tape hiss, or amplifier hum.

Also I question whether a 'recording' of 4'33", even with obvious sounds on it, could even exist, since all Cage did was prescribe a segment of time "in the now" in which sounds would occur.

To 'record' 4'33" would be to objectify it, to freeze it, and to take it out of the 'now,' which I do not think was his intent. His intent was to focus on the listener, and his subjective experience, not to create an experience which could even be recorded.

Cage _*did *_specify that the instrumentalist (piano, orchestra, whatever) was not to play; so in this sense, he_* is *_creating a "silencing" of intended sound, or its supposed potential to have intent. He is making us hear the *other* sounds in the hall; all sounds *except* the ones with potential intent, and the sounds we would expect from these instruments.

So, in a way, Cage is* opposing *the idea of intent, by silencing the instrumentalists, and by focusing on the experience of the listener.


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## mmsbls

@millionrainbows: I agree with almost everything you said above. I think you misunderstood at least some of what I was saying.



millionrainbows said:


> You are expecting 4'33" to be something it is not: intentionally created sounds.


No, you and I agree here. 4'33" is _not_ intentionally created sounds. It is for this precise reason that I do not consider it music. I have no problem with others who do consider it music, and I don't think it's unreasonable to consider it so.



millionrainbows said:


> So now, we must question your premise further:_ is there any music which is 'totally determined'?_


I do not believe that there is music which is totally determined by the composer. The performers (to the extent of the performers' ability to play what they intend) clearly add content.



millionrainbows said:


> That statement implies that 4'33" is "all philosophy" and no sound.


I do believe that 4'33" includes sounds; otherwise, it would completely defeat Cage's purpose.



millionrainbows said:


> This is no reason to criticize 4'33" for exemplifying a 'philosophy,'


I am not criticizing 4'33". It is an interesting work, and as I said, I'm glad I became aware if it.


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## millionrainbows

MacLeod said:


> This is an example of what I like to listen to and an example that is intended to show my personal 'boundaries' (see the OP).
> 
> I think it's time someone else offered their own boundaries!


Oh, ok. This must be the first time in history that the participants in a thread have openly admitted that they are talking about their own personal experience of music, rather than 'objectifying' it into an external object with qualities.

Why, then, is it so hard to do this with 4'33"?


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## Blancrocher

MacLeod said:


> This is an example of what I like to listen to and an example that is intended to show my personal 'boundaries' (see the OP).
> 
> I think it's time someone else offered their own boundaries!


When Lang Lang is the soloist, I have a hard time hearing a performance of anything as music--with the possible exception of 4'33'', which I think I could trust him in.


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## mmsbls

PetrB said:


> Cage's 4'33'' is, like any other piece, meant to be performed. The ambient sound in the room or hall (moving air, even if there is no audience) plus whatever happens within that 4'33'' -- which in the score is divided into movements, the performer meant to convey the breaks -- is the sound of the piece, Ergo, music, not "philosophy." (Only a live recording in a hall with an audience could do the piece justice: *a recording with 'nothing' on it would not be a recording of 4'33''*)


Yes, 4'33" is meant to be performed. Philosophy is not, so I probably should have said something along the lines of 4'33" is, in my opinion, not music, but its philosophical ideas about music and sound are interesting.

As an aside, I realize that Cage's intent was that background sounds would be present throughout the performance, but he did not specify that sounds must occur, as far as I know. It is possible (difficult, but possible) to perform 4'33" without external sounds. With no external sound, humans apparently hear blood flow in their ears (along with perhaps ringing). I have always wondered what Cage would have thought of such a performance.


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## mmsbls

PetrB said:


> It is just 'organized' relatively pitched sounds, folks.





PetrB said:


> This piece and what it is (music) is so often misunderstood that the misunderstanding about it cannot be corrected often enough.


I do like the definition of music as "organized sound", and I think it's one of best, if not the best, definitions I've heard. It seems as though you believe 4'33" is music, and therefore, is organized sound. Could you explain in what way you believe Cage (or others) organizes the sound?


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## GGluek

To make a long argument short , Cage was creating the musical equivalent of "art is whatever you put a frame around.". In this case he was framing a duration (because music exists in time in a way that most fine art does not), and the ambient sounds of the performing/listening space constituted the piece. In that way, yes, it was both a philosophical statement and a piece of "music" as Cage was trying to define it. His random or "chance" music (eventually described by the hifalutin' term "aleatory"), was another thing altogether -- and I have a wonderful example of another composer's aleatory piece going horribly wrong, which I'll share when I have time.


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## Guest

millionrainbows said:


> Oh, ok. This must be the first time in history that the participants in a thread have openly admitted that they are talking about their own personal experience of music, rather than 'objectifying' it into an external object with qualities.
> 
> Why, then, is it so hard to do this with 4'33"?


If you'd read my first post to this thread, you'll see I established right at the start that I was not 'objectifying'.

As for 4'33", it's not music, AFAIC, as it falls beyond my boundaries, but if others wish to treat it so, that's fine by me.


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## Guest

Cage's music from 1951 on is called indeterminate, not aleatoric. Aleatoric is Boulez's word. It describes a largely European notion of inserting chance elements into an otherwise determinate piece. A having your cake and eating it too kinda thing. Cage's way is indeterminacy, a largely US notion of removing the composer's direct control from the equation. 

However philosophical all that may be, the works of music that it creates, including 4'33", are works of music, not works of philosophy. Calling Cage's music, post 1951, philosophy rather than music is not tenable.


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## Stavrogin

I have only read the first few posts and I bookmarked this thread to read it later with calm.

However, I do want to post my favourite definition of what music is (and by contrast what it is not), which is by Luciano Berio and goes more or less like this: "Music is whatever we intend to hear as music".


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## Ukko

Stavrogin said:


> I have only read the first few posts and I bookmarked this thread to read it later with calm.
> 
> However, I do want to post my favourite definition of what music is (and by contrast what it is not), which is by Luciano Berio and goes more or less like this: "Music is whatever we intend to hear as music".


I like the Berio sentiment. The "intend" threw me for a minute, but something very like 'intend' needs to be there.


----------



## Wood

mmsbls said:


> There have been threads on TC attempting to define music. Basically people have asked, "What is music?" In this thread I'm asking for something slightly different - statements of what music is not. More specifically, I'd like to see where TC members draw the boundaries of music. I'd like people to either select an actual work or describe a theoretical work and explain why they think that work is not music. It might be better to select or describe works that you think others believe are (or would be) music.
> 
> I believe Cage's 4'33" is not music. I think the work is interesting, and I'm glad I am aware of it. I do not think the work is crap, garbage, useless, or many other potential derogatory terms. I just think 4'33" is philosophy rather than music. Cage is partly stating his view of music and calling our attention to something we generally do not hear. For me the work is not music because the composer or creator has no control over the sounds that are heard during the performance. For me musical sounds must be a least somewhat intentional.
> 
> So please, let me know where you draw the boundaries of music.


The boundaries of music are set according to the definition of music.

There is no single definition of music.

Therefore this thread is for discussing the definition of music, unfortunately in spite of your intentions for something more specific.

MacLeod defines music as that which he enjoys, and sets the boundaries accordingly. Millions defines music as all sounds, setting his boundaries there.

This has drifted into another pseudo-intellectual debate about which music one likes / doesn't like. Yet again. No matter.


----------



## hpowders

Boundaries? None. It's all music.


----------



## Stavrogin

Ukko said:


> I like the Berio sentiment. The "intend" threw me for a minute, but something very like 'intend' needs to be there.


My English deceives me sometimes, isn't it the same as "we have the intention to"?


----------



## Mahlerian

Stavrogin said:


> My English deceives me sometimes, isn't it the same as "we have the intention to"?


Yes. I think what gave Ukko pause was the fact that sometimes a similar statement is formulated as "Music is whatever we hear as music", without the word "intend".

But as Hans Bulow said of Mahler's Second (after uncovering his ears), "If that is music, then I no longer no anything about music!"


----------



## ptr

I think think that the Berio quote above sums it up very clearly, if there is intent behind the sounds then there is music! 

/ptr


----------



## Headphone Hermit

GGluek said:


> To make a long argument short , Cage was creating the musical equivalent of "art is whatever you put a frame around."


Intriguing ..... so on my shelves, in my CD cases, there are lots of examples of music. And when I play them on a CD player, they become a different examples of music? And if I put them on my I-Pod, they become yet more different examples of music? Because, whatever frame I put round them results in them becoming art?

And, no, I don't wish to propose a definition of art, music or whatnot even if I hear Wittgenstein's suggestion that a wrod (or even a word) acquires the definition that one ascribes to it

apologies Ggluek - I'm not having a pot at you. Really!


----------



## Morimur

I've given up on Cage. I've come away with the sense that I've been looking for something where there's nothing.


----------



## Blake

I've found that I have the abnormality of enjoying most Classical that I hear, Medieval through Contemporary. Discernment is still there, but I'm able to get to the meat of things rather quickly now. A welcome mutation.


----------



## Guest

Lope de Aguirre said:


> I've given up on Cage. I've come away with the sense that I've been looking for something where there's nothing.


Replace "nothing with "something else," and I don't think you'd get any argument from anyone.


----------



## Ukko

Originally Posted by *Stavrogin* My English deceives me sometimes, isn't it the same as "we have the intention to"?



Mahlerian said:


> Yes. I think what gave Ukko pause was the fact that sometimes a similar statement is formulated as "Music is whatever we hear as music", without the word "intend".
> [...]


What 'gave me pause' is the scenario where the intent doesn't pan out. _ptr_ is taking the the intent away from the listener, I will not accept that premise. Any damnfool can label a series of sounds as music, doesn't mean I will buy his story.


----------



## Stavrogin

Any damnfool composer or any damnfool listener?


----------



## mmsbls

Stavrogin said:


> However, I do want to post my favourite definition of what music is (and by contrast what it is not), which is by Luciano Berio and goes more or less like this: "Music is whatever we intend to hear as music".


There may be an interesting distinction between "Music is whatever _we_ intend to hear as music" and "Music is whatever the _composer/performer_ intends (us to hear) as music". I'm not sure I would ever believe something was music if there were no creator intending the sounds as music. Sounds could be musical, but without the creator's intention, I find it hard to view something as actual music.


----------



## Blancrocher

Just the other day, I walked past a blacksmith's shop and heard from it the most exquisite harmonies--the only problem being that there was one hammer that made the most horrible dissonances. 

I still wouldn't deny that it was music, however. Sort of reminded me of a John Cage composition.


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## scratchgolf

In regards to 4'33", I'll offer my perspective. First I'll ask has anyone here has ever seen it performed live? I certainly have not but have watched recordings of it on Youtube. I have tried to imagine what it would be like to see it in person, basing it off my most recent trip to the symphony. I guess I'd compare it to moments of silence, of which I have all too much experience. They are always awkward and depending on the varying length, the sounds you hear during the "silence" are typically amplified. I also believe that what you see during this performance would play off what you hear. Perhaps you hear a cough and try to locate its source. I really think the experience would be interesting. I do not consider it music and have no interest in engaging or being engaged in debate here. Having said that, if I were to see 2 separate concerts offered. One with the lineup Schubert's 9th, 4'33", and Beethoven's 6th, vs just Schubert's 9th and Beethoven's 6th, I would absolutely, and without a doubt, choose the first. Both for the experience and to make the actual music sound that much sweeter.


----------



## KenOC

An interesting perspective on 4'33" from my local classical radio station. They were asked, why don't you ever play this? Their answer:

Our monitoring systems detect it as a loss of audio, in other words "dead air" -- a radio station's worst nightmare because listeners quickly change the station to something else. All kinds of alarms go off...


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## Ukko

Stavrogin said:


> Any damnfool composer or any damnfool listener?


I was going for "composer". but either way works.


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## mmsbls

While people are certainly free to discuss Cage and 4'33" if they wish, I just want to point out that this thread is not really about either. 4'33" was used as an example of a work that might or might not be considered music. The thread is really about the reasons why certain works or collections of sounds might not be considered music by various listeners.


----------



## Guest

Lope de Aguirre said:


> I've given up on Cage. I've come away with the sense that I've been looking for something where there's nothing.


Might as well give up, yeah. Any music that Lope De Aguirre does not enjoy is inherently worthless.


----------



## ArtMusic

some guy said:


> I'm still waiting for MacLeod's third condition.
> 
> In the meantime, it might be as well to look at this intention thing. Seems to me it's an epistemological thing. How do you know whether any given sound or sequence of sounds was intended or not? Sure, you can read about it. And it seems to me that way too many people read about Cage, and misunderstand what he was doing, than actually just sit down and listen. If you were to do that, you would hear sounds and, on a recording, those sounds would occur in the same order every time. How do you know, unless you go outside the listening experience itself, whether or not Cage was controlling each and every one of those sounds? Maybe the question should be "Why do you go outside the listening experience?"
> 
> What I would suggest is that you read about Baroque music instead. Because there you would find that the idea of improvisation is very strong, with scores as reminders to the improvisors to do this or that thing at this or that time. Once you've assimilated the idea of a Baroque score as a suggestion, I'd recommend listening to some cadenzas. Pre-Beethoven, to start. Those are post-Baroque leftovers. Little moments in a work with a different idea about what a score is. Little moments when a performer does something other than what a composer has any control over. Beethoven would change that, making the cadenza a written out thing. And starting this whole idea that the composer must intend everything we hear or we're just not gonna accept that it's music.
> 
> Baroque composers would have found that a very peculiar idea indeed.
> 
> Any improvisor's gonna find that a very peculiar idea, too.
> 
> But, "oh well."
> 
> As for Cage's pieces post-1951 being more philosophy than music, that can only come from a very strange idea about what music and philosophy are. Cage was a composer. He wrote music that was published by a big, famous publishing house. He thought of himself as a composer. He was also a polymath. He was a painter, too. And a writer. And he wrote about, among other things, music. Well, so did Berlioz. Do you ever hear anyone say that Berlioz' opera _Benvenuto Cellini_ is more philosophy than music? Partch wrote a good deal about music, too. Do you ever hear anyone say that Partch's _Delusion of the Fury_ is more philosophy than music?
> 
> And what about Beethoven? He wrote a lot about music, too. His ninth symphony is even more full of philosophy than either of the works I've mentioned so far. And yet....
> 
> Anyway, if you must read something about Cage, I would suggest that you read _The music of John Cage_ by James Pritchett, who treats Cage as a composer, both before and after 1951, and who treats the whole philosophy thing as a critical failure to come to terms with Cage's practices as a composer. And you don't even have to read the whole book. The introduction takes care of this particular issue all by itself.


Cage was a composer. He did compose music. But he did a lot of other things masquerading as music, which did much more harm for classical music than good. I'm afraid he is more ridiculed in general by most than anything else - that's a fact.


----------



## ArtMusic

mmsbls said:


> There have been threads on TC attempting to define music. Basically people have asked, "What is music?" In this thread I'm asking for something slightly different - statements of what music is not. More specifically, I'd like to see where TC members draw the boundaries of music. I'd like people to either select an actual work or describe a theoretical work and explain why they think that work is not music. It might be better to select or describe works that you think others believe are (or would be) music.
> 
> I believe Cage's 4'33" is not music. I think the work is interesting, and I'm glad I am aware of it. I do not think the work is crap, garbage, useless, or many other potential derogatory terms. I just think 4'33" is philosophy rather than music. Cage is partly stating his view of music and calling our attention to something we generally do not hear. For me the work is not music because the composer or creator has no control over the sounds that are heard during the performance. For me musical sounds must be a least somewhat intentional.
> 
> So please, let me know where you draw the boundaries of music.


Good thread.

How about I look this in a different way by giving examples of where the boundary might be, and those that fall on either side of the boundary.

_4'33"_ - not music. Pure and simple.
Noise music - not music. Pure and simple.
Stockhausen _Klavierstuck_, and that string quartet piece requiring planes etc. - Music it is. (But awful at best).
Bach, Mozart etc. -* the GLORY of music, *


----------



## mmsbls

ArtMusic said:


> _4'33"_ - not music. Pure and simple.
> Noise music - not music. Pure and simple.
> Stockhausen _Klavierstuck_, and that string quartet piece requiring planes etc. - Music it is. (But awful at best).
> Bach, Mozart etc. -* the GLORY of music, *


Thank you for trying to show us where your musical boundary is. Could I ask 2 questions?

1) Could you give me some sense of why you feel 4'33" and noise music are not music? 
2) When considering whether some work is music, does it matter whether you find the work good, bad, awful, glorious, etc.?


----------



## ArtMusic

mmsbls said:


> Thank you for trying to show us where your musical boundary is. Could I ask 2 questions?
> 
> 1) Could you give me some sense of why you feel 4'33" and noise music are not music?
> 2) When considering whether some work is music, does it matter whether you find the work good, bad, awful, glorious, etc.?


Shall do.

4'33" and its direct opposite, noise-music, are both not music. The former makes us listen to the sounds that occur naturally in the four minute & half minutes interval in the sense that no musicians were actively engaging in performance. Politically, it also makes a complete mockery of physically deaf people who genuinely cannot listen to any sounds - are these deaf people in perpetual state of listening by describing silence as music? I think not. As for noise-music, these are folks who make improvised sounds with instruments/other matters that generate random noise to the pleasure of folks who like listening to random (loud) noise. It is no different to a jet plane taking off, construction site, woman in labor or anything you can think off that normal people would simply describe as on-goings of the world we live in.

If there are no boundaries, then anything can be anything. An elephant is an apple, a military front line is an opera, a graveyard is a supermarket ....


----------



## Guest

ArtMusic said:


> a graveyard is a supermarket ....


If it's in a George Romero movie, it probably is!




ArtMusic said:


> I'm afraid he is more ridiculed in general by most than anything else - that's a fact.


A fact? Based on your survey of 'most'? Or someone else's you can refer us to?


----------



## Guest

millionrainbows said:


> So now, we must question your premise further:_ is there any music which is 'totally determined'?_
> 
> Only within prescribed bounds, because performances will always vary. Music, even if 'totally' determined and scored, is still an imperfect approximation of an 'idea' about sound.
> 
> So Cage's 4'33" is no different than any other 'determined' music, except that it is at the far end of the spectrum of determinacy/indeterminacy.


That's helpful...the idea that there is a 'spectrum' of determinacy/indeterminacy.



millionrainbows said:


> Also, Cage has reversed the Western idea of music/composer and observer/listener. The listener is now shown that sound is everywhere, and does not need a composer's intention in order for it to be heard as 'meaningful sound.' Actually, this demands much from a listener, as being receptive and seeking meaning in sound.


That may be so, but 'sound' alone would then not be 'music'. 'Meaningful' adds little. A dog barking at my back door has meaning, if I take it to be her asking to be let in...but that's not music.


----------



## Guest

mmsbls said:


> There may be an interesting distinction between "Music is whatever _we_ intend to hear as music" and "Music is whatever the _composer/performer_ intends (us to hear) as music". I'm not sure I would ever believe something was music if there were no creator intending the sounds as music. Sounds could be musical, but without the creator's intention, I find it hard to view something as actual music.


OK. I'm puzzled by your persistence in making this confession.

Anyway, why do you need to distinguish between a listener intending something and "a creator" intending something? Do you separate people into creators and non-creators? One of the "messages" of experimental music generally (as in indeterminacy) is that intention can come from anywhere. From anyone. Think about it. We have been invited to participate in the creative process in a real way, an unprecedented way. And our response, so often, is "No way, dude! I want board-certified composers only creating MY music!!" A strange manifestation of snobbery there, eh?



scratchgolf said:


> In regards to 4'33", I'll offer my perspective. First I'll ask has anyone here has ever seen it performed live? I certainly have not but have watched recordings of it on Youtube. I have tried to imagine what it would be like to see it in person, basing it off my most recent trip to the symphony. I guess I'd compare it to moments of silence, of which I have all too much experience. They are always awkward and depending on the varying length, the sounds you hear during the "silence" are typically amplified. I also believe that what you see during this performance would play off what you hear. Perhaps you hear a cough and try to locate its source. I really think the experience would be interesting. I do not consider it music and have no interest in engaging or being engaged in debate here.


If this latter were truly true, then why did you make this post? You make a debatable assertion--and one that is demonstrably false--then you're going to get some debate. I don't see how you think that you can avoid that.

In any event, I have been to several live performances of _4'33",_ some of them good performances, some lousy. There's a wee bit awkwardness there for the "it's not music" crowd. How is it possible to have different performances of this "not music" piece, some good, some bad? (And before anyone jumps in with a theatre remark, I'll ask if there are any performances of music that are _not_ theatrical?)


----------



## Stavrogin

some guy said:


> OK. I'm puzzled by your persistence in making this confession.
> 
> Anyway, why do you need to distinguish between a listener intending something and "a creator" intending something? Do you separate people into creators and non-creators? One of the "messages" of experimental music generally (as in indeterminacy) is that intention can come from anywhere. From anyone. Think about it. We have been invited to participate in the creative process in a real way, an unprecedented way. And our response, so often, is "No way, dude! I want board-certified composers only creating MY music!!" A strange manifestation of snobbery there, eh?


But those "proposals" aren't, still, the initiative of someone? Which wouldn't even exist without him? I think that that's what mmsbls means by "creator".



some guy said:


> If this latter were truly true, then why did you make this post? You make a debatable assertion--and one that is demonstrably false--then you're going to get some debate. I don't see how you think that you can avoid that.
> 
> In any event, I have been to several live performances of _4'33",_ some of them good performances, some lousy. There's a wee bit awkwardness there for the "it's not music" crowd. How is it possible to have different performances of this "not music" piece, some good, some bad? (And before anyone jumps in with a theatre remark, I'll ask if there are any performances of music that are _not_ theatrical?)


In case you weren't being sarcastic, I am curious as to what criteria you use to evaluate a performance of 4'33'' as good or lousy.


----------



## ArtMusic

Stavrogin said:


> In case you weren't being sarcastic, I am curious as to what criteria you use to evaluate a performance of 4'33'' as good or lousy.


I say a great performance of 4'33" deserves an encore, how about it?


----------



## albrecht

I'm really puzzled by this but to this point I am not particularly defining boundaries of music, instead a boundary of human knowledge of defining something. John Cage may had believed that his composition 4'33'' is music, and others would just define it as mere silence; I guess, we define our own music. Maybe it's not a matter of who were moved by it, or who were not.. but a matter of how people would understand someone's thoughts through music, though I admit, I didn't get it (4'33") quite well. Just my opinion.
Well, I could say that this piece can be performed on forests or some good public spots, where I can enjoy this 4'33'' of silence, hearing my own heartbeat, gush of wind and birds on their nests, then have a nap.


----------



## Guest

What makes a good performance of anything good? What makes a bad performance?

Of 4'33", of St. Matthew Passion, of Piano piece for Terry Riley #1, of the Rhenish symphony?

And also, for the forty trillionth time (it's probably more than that, but let's just say 40 trillion for the moment), _4'33"_ is not about silence, it's about intention. That is, it is about attending to the sounds that are outside the composer's control, the sounds that happen, regardless, in a performance of Beethoven's ninth, in a performance of piano music by Christian Wolff. (The latter played some of his piano music once in a room on a hot day with the windows open. The sounds of passing traffic, including air traffic, drowned out some of the softer passages. When an attendee asked Christian if he could play some of those pieces again, with the windows closed, he said that that would not be necessary.)

Well, at least we're not bashing Schoenberg for the 800 trillionth time.:lol:


----------



## scratchgolf

some guy said:


> If this latter were truly true, then why did you make this post? You make a debatable assertion--and one that is demonstrably false--then you're going to get some debate. I don't see how you think that you can avoid that.
> 
> In any event, I have been to several live performances of _4'33",_ some of them good performances, some lousy. There's a wee bit awkwardness there for the "it's not music" crowd. How is it possible to have different performances of this "not music" piece, some good, some bad? (And before anyone jumps in with a theatre remark, I'll ask if there are any performances of music that are _not_ theatrical?)


What I referred to as awkward were moments of silence. Typically because it means someone has died and you're paying your respects. What makes it awkward for me is, although it's called a "moment of silence", it's typically the noises you hear during this time that make a lasting impression. What makes it awkward for me is the fact that I know I'm supposed to be focused and paying my respects but it's the car horns and bird chirps and random noise that makes an impression with me.

My statement that I do not wish to debate my opinion stands. Feel free to lump me in with the "It's not music" crowd because a few people understood exactly what I said and understood what I said was absolutely not meant to draw the ire "They who we shall not offend". But, if you remove a famous painting from a gallery wall, leaving only a dust imprint, and pass it off as art, I don't see it as such. Art? Not in my opinion. Debate? No thank you sir. Have a nice day? Absolutely.


----------



## Guest

Indeed. And you have very deftly answered my unasked question.


----------



## Svelte Silhouette

Ukko said:


> Any damnfool can label a series of sounds as music, doesn't mean I will buy his story.


This really hits the nail on the head where music is distinguishable from noise


----------



## Guest

some guy said:


> In any event, I have been to several live performances of _4'33",_ some of them good performances, some lousy. There's a wee bit awkwardness there for the "it's not music" crowd. How is it possible to have different performances of this "not music" piece, some good, some bad? (And before anyone jumps in with a theatre remark, I'll ask if there are any performances of music that are _not_ theatrical?)


I don't see why there's any awkwardness at all. The fact that you accept that there are differences between performances of a piece you accept as music doesn't invalidate the view of those who don't. For them, all "performances" of 4'33" are simply different performances of something they don't recognise as music...

...assuming that they will bother with identifying quality criteria to distinguish 'lousy' from 'good'. I note you've not offered your criteria yet.


----------



## Stavrogin

some guy said:


> What makes a good performance of anything good? What makes a bad performance?
> 
> Of 4'33", of St. Matthew Passion, of Piano piece for Terry Riley #1, of the Rhenish symphony?
> 
> And also, for the forty trillionth time (it's probably more than that, but let's just say 40 trillion for the moment), _4'33"_ is not about silence, it's about intention. That is, it is about attending to the sounds that are outside the composer's control, the sounds that happen, regardless, in a performance of Beethoven's ninth, in a performance of piano music by Christian Wolff. (The latter played some of his piano music once in a room on a hot day with the windows open. The sounds of passing traffic, including air traffic, drowned out some of the softer passages. When an attendee asked Christian if he could play some of those pieces again, with the windows closed, he said that that would not be necessary.)
> 
> Well, at least we're not bashing Schoenberg for the 800 trillionth time.:lol:


Fine, but I am not sure I have got a reply.


----------



## Jobis

In terms of boundaries or restrictions on a composer, Gyorgy Ligeti wrote that:

_"Now there is no taboo; everything is allowed. But one cannot simply go back to tonality, it's not the way. We must find a way of neither going back nor continuing the avant-garde. I am in a prison: one wall is the avant-garde, the other wall is the past, and I want to escape."_

Personally I like the avant garde, but he has a point in that it is what it is; it does not (and ought not to) represent all contemporary music.


----------



## violadude

Jobis said:


> In terms of boundaries or restrictions on a composer, Gyorgy Ligeti wrote that:
> 
> _"Now there is no taboo; everything is allowed. But one cannot simply go back to tonality, it's not the way. We must find a way of neither going back nor continuing the avant-garde. I am in a prison: one wall is the avant-garde, the other wall is the past, and I want to escape."_
> 
> Personally I like the avant garde, but he has a point in that it is what it is; it does not (and ought not to) represent all contemporary music.


Ligeti should be proud of himself. I think he struck a balance between the past and the avant garde without his style being defined by either quite well.


----------



## Guest

MacLeod said:


> The fact that you accept that there are differences between performances of a piece you accept as music doesn't invalidate the view of those who don't. For them, all "performances" of 4'33" are simply different performances of something they don't recognise as music...


The thing is, I've heard a LOT of uneducated folk claim that, say, loud rock music isn't "music" but just "noise". Of course, all this art stuff is subjective, but some measure of objectivity must be imposed to maintain a general sense of sanity in the world. Otherwise, "Mozart is not music. In fact, to my knowledge, music is a kind of soup" becomes an equally valid ideology. So I'm really careful about being to sensitive to validating any and all irrational thoughts that come out of my head or other people's mouths.


----------



## mmsbls

some guy said:


> Anyway, why do you need to distinguish between a listener intending something and "a creator" intending something? Do you separate people into creators and non-creators? One of the "messages" of experimental music generally (as in indeterminacy) is that intention can come from anywhere. From anyone. Think about it. We have been invited to participate in the creative process in a real way, an unprecedented way. And our response, so often, is "No way, dude! I want board-certified composers only creating MY music!!" A strange manifestation of snobbery there, eh?


Well, I normally don't meet people and wonder whether they are creators or non-creators. But there is a clear distinction at times. When I go to a concert, I may be creating interesting mental processes, but I do not get paid. The creators of the music do. When I cite other authors' papers, I do not get credit for a citation. The creators of that paper do. So I think there is a natural, useful, and reasonable justification in some instances for separating the creators from non-creators.

I do think it's important to realize that the work itself does not change depending on whether it's called music or not. I may not believe that 4'33" is music, but I could have a detailed discussion with someone who does and the question of whether it's music might never arise. Just because I don't believe it's music doesn't mean I devalue it in any way. I just think of one particular attribute of the work differently from some others.

Some people believe chess is a sport. I do not. Both of us believe that chess is a fascinating competition that can be very exciting and interesting to watch. We can have very similar attitudes towards chess while still believing differently about whether it is a sport.



some guy said:


> In any event, I have been to several live performances of _4'33",_ some of them good performances, some lousy. There's a wee bit awkwardness there for the "it's not music" crowd. How is it possible to have different performances of this "not music" piece, some good, some bad? (And before anyone jumps in with a theatre remark, I'll ask if there are any performances of music that are _not_ theatrical?)


Haven't you answered your own question? If I go to the theater to see a play, I might find the performance good or bad. But I won't come away believing I just attended a musical performance. There may not be any performances of music that are not theatrical, but there are certainly theatrical performances that are not music.


----------



## Stavrogin

Well I for one think that 4'33'' is music. 
It is music because its creator (Cage) meant to express something and he did so by organizing (=/= controlling) sounds and silences.

I am still (genuinely, not polemically) curious as to how "some guy" (the user) assesses a good vs a bad performance of it.


----------



## millionrainbows

millionrainbows said:


> Oh, ok. This must be the first time in history that the participants in a thread have openly admitted that they are talking about their own personal experience of music, rather than 'objectifying' it into an external object with qualities.
> 
> Why, then, is it so hard to do this with 4'33"?





MacLeod said:


> If you'd read my first post to this thread, you'll see I established right at the start that I was not 'objectifying'.


Right, I agree, that's what you said, that your opinion was totally subjective. That is obviously why your "subjective" approach to 4'33" does not qualify it as valid music.



MacLeod said:


> As for 4'33", it's not music, AFAIC, as it falls beyond my boundaries, but if others wish to treat it so, that's fine by me.


That's misleading, because it sounds like you are objectifying 4'33" by saying it is not music; but you need to make it *really clear *that this 'invalidity' of the work is only an *opinion* of your own subjective making, and does not reflect on the work itself.



MacLeod said:


> This is an example of what I like to listen to and an example that is intended to show my personal 'boundaries' (see the OP). I think it's time someone else offered their own boundaries!


I'm really more interested in the work itself, rather than how you choose to define it or put boundaries around it.

I am approaching 4'33" with an open, receptive mind, so that I can experience it as John Cage intended it to be experienced, and meet him halfway, as I do with all art I wish to engage with.

You, on the other hand, are being inflexible in your subjectivity. This attitude of 'boundaries' is not a true engagement with the work, because you have pre-defined it.

Art is not 'all subjectivity' or 'all opinion.' There is an objective dimension to it, which involves an interaction with the composer and his work.


----------



## Stavrogin

millionrainbows said:


> By your creation of boundaries, and what is or is not music, you are objectifying. It doesn't matter if you denied this in your OP, or now. This is what you said, and what I replied to:


Mmm may I ask to either use the verb "objectivize", if that is what you guys mean by "objectify"; or, if not, explain to me what you mean by "objectify".

If you mean objectivize, I don't think MacLeod is doing it: he has described his own definition, and he is asking others about theirs.


----------



## millionrainbows

Stavrogin said:


> Mmm may I ask to either use the verb "objectivize", if that is what you guys mean by "objectify"; or, if not, explain to me what you mean by "objectify".
> 
> If you mean objectivize, I don't think MacLeod is doing it: he has described his own definition, and he is asking others about theirs.


I've already edited-out that statement of mine you quoted.

Ob`jec´ti`fy

*v. t.**1.*To cause to become an object; to cause to assume the character of an object; to represent or consider as an object; to render objective.

It's a misleading message, because McLeod only appears to be objectifying, but he has already openly admitted that he is just putting forth subjective definitions which do not define the work objectively.

These definitions of his are for his own entertainment, and have nothing to do with 4'33" as an objective work of art.

So we will not gain any understanding of the work unless we approach it receptively, with no preconceived definitions. Otherwise, we are close to being censors, appearing to tell others what is or is not art.

Thank God there is nor real power behind these 'definitions,' or we'd be prohibited from approaching anything which has been determined to be 'non-art.'


----------



## Stavrogin

I don't know, maybe you're inferring too much out of what appears to be just an admittedly subjective definition of music, which (again admittedly) doesn't mean to diminish the work itself nor the possibility to talk about it.

I do agree with you that one should always seek a certain degree of objectivity in such debates.
(My last attempt at a definition is in this direction).


----------



## samurai

arcaneholocaust said:


> Might as well give up, yeah. Any music that Lope De Aguirre does not enjoy is inherently worthless.


Yes, meaningless to him, not necessarily, therefore, to others, which I don't believe he was asserting.


----------



## Guest

arcaneholocaust said:


> The thing is, I've heard a LOT of uneducated folk claim that, say, loud rock music isn't "music" but just "noise". Of course, all this art stuff is subjective, but some measure of objectivity must be imposed to maintain a general sense of sanity in the world. Otherwise, "Mozart is not music. In fact, to my knowledge, music is a kind of soup" becomes an equally valid ideology. So I'm really careful about being to sensitive to validating any and all irrational thoughts that come out of my head or other people's mouths.


I'm not convinced that a measure of objectivity _must _be imposed. What has constituted music over millennia has changed significantly - in the composition, playing, listening etc; there have even been those who have exercised control over it in one way or another, and even many who've agreed with and acceded to such control. That doesn't make such "objectivity" a _must_. If it did, the many departures from expectations (or control) that have occurred over time might never have been accepted as 'music'.



millionrainbows said:


> That's misleading, because it sounds like you are objectifying 4'33" by saying it is not music; but you need to make it *really clear *that this 'invalidity' of the work is only an *opinion* of your own subjective making, and does not reflect on the work itself.


I did. I used the shorthand for 'As Far As I'm Concerned".



millionrainbows said:


> These definitions of his are for his own entertainment, and have nothing to do with 4'33" as an objective work of art.
> 
> So we will not gain any understanding of the work unless we approach it receptively, with no preconceived definitions. Otherwise, we are close to being censors, appearing to tell others what is or is not art.





millionrainbows said:


> I'm really more interested in the work itself, rather than how you choose to define it or put boundaries around it.
> 
> I am approaching 4'33" with an open, receptive mind, [...] You, on the other hand, are being inflexible in your subjectivity. This attitude of 'boundaries' is not a true engagement with the work


Well that makes you a better listener than me, I'm sure. However, you have to remember that this is not a thread about 4'33", but about boundaries. If you don't have any, you might say so and start a thread elsewhere on 4'33" instead.


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## PetrB

Objectivity / Subjectivity?

_*I really can not make out the exact intent of the OP*_.

The OP seems to be asking a question which most anyone would consider subjective, ergo, about all that could really be expected are subjective responses.


----------



## Guest

MacLeod said:


> I'm not convinced that a measure of objectivity _must _be imposed. What has constituted music over millennia has changed significantly - in the composition, playing, listening etc; there have even been those who have exercised control over it in one way or another, and even many who've agreed with and acceded to such control. That doesn't make such "objectivity" a _must_. If it did, the many departures from expectations (or control) that have occurred over time might never have been accepted as 'music'.


I didn't necessarily say that objectivity is a must or else the universe will implode. But some measure of objectivity is pretty much necessary to stop people from "ragequitting" all over the place.

If a few dozen new posters suddenly flocked to TC all claiming that the pinnacle of classical music is, indeed, the symphony of sounds resonating from their morning bowl of rice krispees, would each and every one of us be able to accept the subjectivity of it all without even a trace of unspoken, scathing judgements? I doubt it.

The very associations our brain makes when we hear the syllables "myoo-zick" are shaped by ideologies, and everyone's going to be in a foul mood if we don't set up SOME sort of broad standard.

I guess what I'm saying is that: yes, I am aware that all opinions, definitions of art, etc. are subjective. However, just to avoid talking everyone's ears off, I might still say "Not everything is a matter of opinion" instead of, each and every time, saying "If we embrace total subjectivity, everyone's going to kill each other in the streets." etc.


----------



## Wood

mmsbls said:


> I do think it's important to realize that the work itself does not change depending on whether it's called music or not. I may not believe that 4'33" is music, but I could have a detailed discussion with someone who does and the question of whether it's music might never arise. Just because I don't believe it's music doesn't mean I devalue it in any way. I just think of one particular attribute of the work differently from some others.
> 
> Some people believe chess is a sport. I do not. Both of us believe that chess is a fascinating competition that can be very exciting and interesting to watch. We can have very similar attitudes towards chess while still believing differently about whether it is a sport.


Fine, but then what is the purpose of this debate other than a discussion of how different people choose to define music (or sport)? It is what it is, and doesn't change by whatever label you give it, as you imply, so where can we go with this?


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## Jobis

Silence only exists as a component of music, if there is some tone or sound to break it up; it is a negation of sound, just as shadows cannot exist without light. 4'33 is an interest concept, but its not a work of art or a piece of music; not every thought provoking idea is a work of art in itself.


----------



## Headphone Hermit

except when it comes to music, apparently


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## Guest

Well Jobis, if you continue to define _4'33"_ as a piece about silence, contrary to the express intentions of its author, then you will continue to make these claims. (And if you continue to define silence as "the absence of sound," which the piece exists expressly to contradict....)

How about considering what the piece is really all about? I mean, for a change, you know.


----------



## PetrB

Jobis said:


> Silence only exists as a component of music, if there is some tone or sound to break it up; it is a negation of sound, just as shadows cannot exist without light. 4'33 is an interest concept, but its not a work of art or a piece of music; not every thought provoking idea is a work of art in itself.


You might as well say _the score_ of Beethoven's Hammerklavier sonata is also 'about silence.' Any score, until it is performed, is just symbols on paper -- it could be used to paper a wall in your home 

Thus, it might as well be made plain and clear for the umpteeeeeenth time... 
4'33'' is a score, rendered in the _indicated_ context that it be performed in a space with an audience, which makes it about sound, not silence, _operating in exactly the same way as the score to the Beethoven_ and that is a fact, not a philosophical debate.


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## Guest

Wow, the old one-two punch there!!

Great job, Petr!


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## Stavrogin

Hey you still owe me a reply, don't you


----------



## science

Stavrogin said:


> I have only read the first few posts and I bookmarked this thread to read it later with calm.
> 
> However, I do want to post my favourite definition of what music is (and by contrast what it is not), which is by Luciano Berio and goes more or less like this: "Music is whatever we intend to hear as music".


That is probably the best definition possible. I'm glad to take the element of intentionality away from the source of the sound, just for philosophical purposes in view of things like birdsong and whale noises and rain and so on.


----------



## Jobis

PetrB said:


> You might as well say _the score_ of Beethoven's Hammerklavier sonata is also 'about silence.' Any score, until it is performed, is just symbols on paper -- it could be used to paper a wall in your home
> 
> Thus, it might as well be made plain and clear for the umpteeeeeenth time...
> 4'33'' is a score, rendered in the _indicated_ context that it be performed in a space with an audience, which makes it about sound, not silence, _operating in exactly the same way as the score to the Beethoven_ and that is a fact, not a philosophical debate.


Music does not only exist in performance, it exists as an idea in one's head. How else could we improvise anything?

Beethoven's score contains values for pitch, time and dynamics (at the very least) Cage's score contains only indications of time and for that reason how is it different from a mere blank calendar?


----------



## Jobis

some guy said:


> Well Jobis, if you continue to define _4'33"_ as a piece about silence, contrary to the express intentions of it's author, then you will continue to make these claims. (And if you continue to define silence as "the absence of sound," which the piece exists expressly to contradict....)
> 
> How about considering what the piece is really all about? I mean, for a change, you know.


I get it, I do, but all it is is an idea. There is no cause to incidental noise, where is the music?


----------



## Blancrocher

Even a blank calendar could be a work of art if you put it in a museum, in my view (though I wouldn't make a lot of special trips just to see it). Similarly, I'd be willing to hear many things as music (that are less acoustically interesting than 4'33'', incidentally), so long as they were suitably presented as music.

These are personal judgments, of course, and I don't mind if others don't share them.

*p.s.* Having said this and though I agree that 4'33'' is not about silence, I still intend to make lazy and misleading jokes about this composition in the future.

*p.p.s* In the meantime, though, a little tribute to two great artists:


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## JohnnyRotten

The boundaries of music? _I alone_ decide what is music to _my_ ears. Others telling me how to define music is thought policing. I remind you of edicts about what is to be considered music issued by regimes in Iran and Afghanistan. To be resisted at all costs. On this forum, too.


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## Morimur

Cage was a man of ideas; a philosopher of music. 4'33 was influential because it propagated the idea that any sound could exist as music. 4'33 was and remains valuable within the context of Cage's philosophy.


----------



## Guest

Interesting thread! 

My little two pence worth:

For me music is a sound-based endeavour. I think that is about as far as I can go, so if there is a boundary to be identified it would be what falls outside of this notion. (I had to say sound-BASED to include our infamous Cagian endeavour!)


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## Guest

Wood said:


> Fine, but then what is the purpose of this debate *other than* a discussion of how different people choose to define music (or sport)? It is what it is, and doesn't change by whatever label you give it, as you imply, so where can we go with this?


Other than? But that's what it is...a discussion about how different people define their personal music boundaries. If it's not a discussion that floats your boat, you don't have to participate.



arcaneholocaust said:


> I didn't necessarily say that objectivity is a must or else the universe will implode. But some measure of objectivity is pretty much necessary to stop people from "ragequitting" all over the place.
> 
> If a few dozen new posters suddenly flocked to TC all claiming that the pinnacle of classical music is, indeed, the symphony of sounds resonating from their morning bowl of rice krispees, would each and every one of us be able to accept the subjectivity of it all without even a trace of unspoken, scathing judgements? I doubt it.
> 
> The very associations our brain makes when we hear the syllables "myoo-zick" are shaped by ideologies, and everyone's going to be in a foul mood if we don't set up SOME sort of broad standard.
> 
> I guess what I'm saying is that: yes, I am aware that all opinions, definitions of art, etc. are subjective. However, just to avoid talking everyone's ears off, I might still say "Not everything is a matter of opinion" instead of, each and every time, saying "If we embrace total subjectivity, everyone's going to kill each other in the streets." etc.


What do you mean, you didn't "necessarily say"? You said, "some measure of objectivity must be imposed". The imploding universe and people losing their internet tempers is irrelevant. Either you think an objectivity must be imposed, or you don't. I don't


----------



## PetrB

Jobis said:


> Music does not only exist in performance, it exists as an idea in one's head. How else could we improvise anything?


To slightly alter the line from Peter Shaffer's_ Amadeus_, "Write it down (or play it / record it), Wolfie. It is no good to anyone if it is just in your head."

*Music does not exist unless it is sounding.*



Jobis said:


> Beethoven's score contains values for pitch, time and dynamics (at the very least) Cage's score contains only indications of time and for that reason how is it different from a mere blank calendar?


Cage's score indicates duration, _with the sound content left to chance_. The score is implicit (like any other) that it be performed --it is in three movements of timed durations -- and that includes the performance be in front of an audience; the ambient sound in the hall from the audience is what is 'being played.'

The piece is still very much about "sound." The score _in performance_ is very much about catalyzing the sound, and on that level it is clearly, then 'organized sound' -- as taking place in a very calculated setting.

No one has to like the idea, but I personally think it simply pig-headed stubborn to not want to think of the performed piece as other than 'a piece of music.'

I hasten to add that Cage _wrote only one piece like this,_ that he was entirely aware of what it was. The resultant in-hall reaction, providing the sound, is very much aligned with the intent. and he knew there only needed to be one such piece.


----------



## Wood

MacLeod said:


> Other than? But that's what it is...a discussion about how different people define their personal music boundaries. If it's not a discussion that floats your boat, you don't have to participate.


Thanks sweetie, but I shall continue.

My point is that it is just a display of what an individual's definition of music is, but it doesn't have any relevance beyond that. There is certainly nothing to discuss.

In other words, it just provides yet another opportunity for haters to hate.


----------



## Ukko

Wood said:


> Thanks sweetie, but I shall continue.
> 
> My point is that it is just a display of what an individual's definition of music is, but it doesn't have any relevance beyond that. There is certainly nothing to discuss.
> 
> In other words, it just provides yet another opportunity for haters to hate.


 And for lovers to express their love... for strange things that float their boats.


----------



## mmsbls

PetrB said:


> Objectivity / Subjectivity?
> 
> _*I really can not make out the exact intent of the OP*_.
> 
> The OP seems to be asking a question which most anyone would consider subjective, ergo, about all that could really be expected are subjective responses.


Yes! Yes! Yes! I assumed that was clear from my post. I specifically stated:



> So please, let me know where _*you*_ draw the boundaries of music.


I'm not really interested in definitions of music. I want to know where other TC members believe their boundaries are.


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## mmsbls

Wood said:


> Fine, but then what is the purpose of this debate other than a discussion of how different people choose to define music (or sport)? It is what it is, and doesn't change by whatever label you give it, as you imply, so where can we go with this?


Maybe my reply to PetrB makes this unnecessary. This is a music forum where we discuss all matters about classical music. The overwhelming majority of posts are subjective where members just give their feelings, beliefs, opinions on various matters. This thread is no different. I am simply interested in where others draw the line on music. My OP was filled with subjective statements (e.g. "For me..."). I just want that from others - just like most other threads.


----------



## mmsbls

PetrB said:


> *Music does not exist unless it is sounding.*


Awhile back, I (or someone else - I can't remember) made a comment similar to that. Another member questioned the comment saying that we all can hear works of music "playing" in our minds. When we "play" music in our minds, there are no sounds (at least by the usual definition). Do you consider what we hear in our minds as music?


----------



## PetrB

mmsbls said:


> Awhile back, I (or someone else - I can't remember) made a comment similar to that. Another member questioned the comment saying that we all can hear works of music "playing" in our minds. When we "play" music in our minds, there are no sounds (at least by the usual definition). Do you consider what we hear in our minds as music?


*Imagined music is not realized music,* even for those with the gift and / or training who actually 'hear' the sound(s) in their inner ear. Once in a blue moon, I have woken up with the sensation of actually hearing some music I imagined, i.e. seeming as real as if instruments were physically playing. That music is no more real than any other dream I've had. _*Virtual is not real.*_

I'm not at all interested in 'the philosophy' of the question, "if music is in my head, is that not music?" ...because I resoundingly think it is not. Further: both by the fundamental definitions of music and as a pianist who also composes, *music is nothing* unless it is actually sounding.

*Music is sound; sound is moving air; that is not imagined sound.* That seems plain enough....


----------



## aleazk

I like _good music_. What is good music?: _pieces that work_.


----------



## PetrB

aleazk said:


> I like _good music_. What is good music?: _pieces that work_.


My comp teacher globally defined tonal, *"If a piece works, it is tonal."* 
That is _the_ best definition of tonal I've ever heard!

With that definition recalled and in mind, that is my musical boundary, "pieces that work."


----------



## mmsbls

PetrB said:


> *Music is sound; sound is moving air; that is not imagined sound.* That seems plain enough....


Imagined sound is not music. That is straightforward. Thanks for your boundary.


----------



## Sid James

mmsbls said:


> ...
> Cage was without question a composer. I simply believe that the one piece, 4'33", is a philosophical work making a statement about sounds rather than being music.


I agree with you on that, I see 4'33" as a conceptual art piece, not as music. Others during that immediate post-war period, 1960's and '70's, did similar things challenging traditional concepts of music.

I see these types of conceptual art, art and language, performance art and happenings as largely tied to that era. Of course there where precursors - like Alfred Jarry in late 19th century Paris, and Dada movement that came out during WWI, the the Futurist movement that came after with its noise machines. There are links too with various agendas in politics (Dada had a strong anarchist element, but also just sending up the absurdity of war, and dictatorial regimes such as Mussolini's Italy and Lenin's USSR coopted Futurism for a while), and of course the Zen philosophies of the East that Cage was interested in too.

These sorts of things may form a subset of creative practices, they're multidisciplinary / multimedia. Perhaps in some ways also going back to Wagner's concept of _gesamkunstwerk_, a new genre which combines all the arts? But I wouldn't say 4'33" is exactly the same, perhaps just as being loosely in this tradition breaking boundaries between the arts. I still don't see it as being music, whereas Wagner clearly is.


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## tdc

I agree with Berio's quote that music is whatever the listener intends to hear as music. The boundaries on this are clearly subjective. I completely understand how many would not view 4'33" as music, but in an over arching sense I agree with Cage's idea that all sounds (one could take this further to everything - since everything is vibration) _could_ be perceived as music - if the listener intends to hear it that way.

If one's definition of music is organized sound then I think 4'33" qualifies because it is a space of time the composer has organized in which everyone is to listen to the sounds of their surroundings in order to perceive their musicality. It is only if a listener makes a conscious choice to subjectively perceive these sounds as not being musical that they cease to be music - to that individual.


----------



## Guest

Wood said:


> My point is that it is just a display of what an individual's definition of music is, but it doesn't have any relevance beyond that. There is certainly nothing to discuss.
> 
> In other words, it just provides yet another opportunity for haters to hate.


The whole point of this forum is that it's just a display of what individual people think about music...it doesn't have to have relevance beyond that!

And no, it is not "in other words" an opportunity for haters to hate. Where do you deduce that? Has anyone here expressed hate?


----------



## Guest

tdc said:


> I agree with Cage's idea that all sounds (one could take this further to everything - since everything is vibration) _could_ be perceived as music - if the listener intends to hear it that way.


And you could say that _anything _you could put in your mouth was food, if you intend to eat it as food.


----------



## tdc

MacLeod said:


> And you could say that _anything _you could put in your mouth was food, if you intend to eat it as food.


I could say that yes, but I didn't.


----------



## Guest

tdc said:


> I could say that yes, but I didn't.


. Indeed, you didn't. I should have said, "One could say..." but I might have been accused of "objectifying". My point is that consideration of the boundaries between categories is all very well, and unlike those who think this is a pointless discussion, I've been happy to offer my own personal, subjective views in answer to the OP, but...

...the fact that an esteemed (or, by some, reviled) composer had the wit to present us with a proposition _about _music (art, life, the universe) doesn't mean I shall accept it _as _music. It's often said here that composers should be the last people we should ask about their music, as they are just as entitled to spout nonsense about it as the next critic. More importantly, for practical purposes, what I consider music (now, at this point in time, but not necessarily for all time) is what I would be willing to pay money to own. Checking out the cost of owning Cage's 4'33", I see I'd have to part with a relative fortune...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/433-Edgard-...id=1401428520&sr=1-2&keywords=4'33"+john+cage

...though if someone can point me to the Naxos cheapie, I'll willing give it some thought!

What I find more interesting is that others should be so coy about their boundaries. For example, my guess is that what TC members will go and see performed live is not necessarily what they will pay to have in their CD collection. That would suggest to me some kind of boundary as yet unexplored.

[edit] Having listened to a performance of 4'33" on Youtube, I noticed this TED talk about it. He's not the greatest speaker, and what he has to say is, I think, unexceptional, but it's only 15 minutes long (though I'm sure he needn't have taken longer than four and half minutes to say it!)


----------



## Guest

Stavrogin said:


> Hey you still owe me a reply, don't you


No.

I already replied to you. (And there was no owing about it.) You rejected that reply. For me to specify, at this point, what makes a performance of 4'33" good or bad would just be embarrassing. "What? Why that's the same thing that makes any performance of anything good or bad!"

Which is what I already said.


----------



## Nereffid

mmsbls said:


> Maybe my reply to PetrB makes this unnecessary. This is a music forum where we discuss all matters about classical music. The overwhelming majority of posts are subjective where members just give their feelings, beliefs, opinions on various matters. This thread is no different. I am simply interested in where others draw the line on music. My OP was filled with subjective statements (e.g. "For me..."). I just want that from others - just like most other threads.


But surely a polite exchange of views without anyone being right or wrong is just... antithetical to the purposes of the Internet? 

For my part, in attempting to answer the original question I have to say I don't see boundaries, just grey areas. And in those grey areas I think that deciding whether something is music just comes down to whether I find it worth listening to. Which also depends on the context (such as, am I deliberately exploring, or do I just want "something to listen to"). Musique concrete is one example - if I'm in a certain frame of mind I'll find it musical, other times not.


----------



## Guest

Alrighty then. I've read the rest of the thread now.

The position about Cage's philosophy seems pretty well entrenched. There doesn't seem to be any reason behind it, but maybe that's what makes it so entrenched. If there were reason, there wouldn't need to be any entrenchment.

No reason, but I'm gonna give dislodging another try.

For everyone who thinks Cage's musical piece _4'33"_ is not a piece of music but a philosophical treatise, here's some questions to consider, starting with "Why?" Why do you think this? If it is a philosophical treatise, why isn't it presented as such? Besides, how many other philosophical treatises do you know that have been published by a major publishing company as a piece of music? How many other philosophical treatises do you know that have been performed, numerous times, by professional musicians?

That's for starters. Next, "why _4'33"_?" What about _0'00",_ which is sometimes referred to as _4'33" n.2?_ What about the _Freeman Etudes?_ What about _101?_ What about _Apartment House 1776?_ Why do you single out _4'33"_ to be philosophy rather than music? Indeed, what _is_ the philosophy being expressed by this piece of philosophy? That there are sounds other than the ones intended by a composer. True enough. Not terribly philosophical. That you can listen to those sounds and derive pleasure from that listening. Again, true enough. Slightly more philosophical but still, not very. That the sounds that a composer doesn't intend can have as much virtue as the ones that are intended. That's more philosophical, but that's not really what people seem to be on about when they say that _4'33"_ is philosophy rather than music.

Here's a philosophy: democracy. The idea that all members of a group need to be treated equally. Much more philosophical than anything _4'33"_ is trying "to say." It's the idea behind quite a number of pieces of music. Schoenberg's _Variations_ for orchestra for one. Gerhard's symphony number 4 for another. Boulez's _Structures Book 1,_ which, if Ligeti was right, is not music but a psychological disorder.

Here's another philosophy, that however far we stray from home, we always have to return. That's an idea, too. And it generated a lot of philosophical treatises that masquerade as music, too. Beethoven's ninth symphony, for instance, which (as I pointed out already, and which has been studiously ignored) is full of all sorts of other philosophical ideas, too, which determine in large part how at least the last movement plays out. (As it were.)

None of these other examples of philosophical (or philosophically motivated) music get called "philosophy," though. Only _4'33"._ Not even other pieces by Cage, which illustrate his philosophical ideas about intentionality, get called "more philosophy than music." Well, they do, but not by TC posters.:devil:

So what gives? Why _4'33"_ and not _Roaratorio?_ Why _4'33"_ and not _Incidental Music_ by George Brecht? Why _4'33"_ and not the Resurrection symphony by Mahler? Why _4'33"_ and not _Grosse Fuge? by Beethoven?_


----------



## Guest

Nereffid said:


> But surely a polite exchange of views without anyone being right or wrong is just... antithetical to the purposes of the Internet?


This is, of course, true.

It can be difficult, however, to express a plain opinion without others reading more into it than intended. If I say that, in my opinion, one piece of music belongs to the category and another doesn't, it should not be read as disparaging, or hating, or scorning, or laden in any way with any emotional over/undertone. I am only too well aware that there are some posters who take many opportunities to scorn, disparage etc...and that can make it difficult for the more sober commenter to be taken at face value.



Nereffid said:


> For my part, in attempting to answer the original question I have to say I don't see boundaries, just grey areas. And in those grey areas I think that deciding whether something is music just comes down to whether I find it worth listening to.


I like the idea of grey area better than boundary. And your last point chimes with the third of my (personal) conditions.


----------



## Nereffid

MacLeod said:


> It can be difficult, however, to express a plain opinion without others reading more into it than intended. If I say that, in my opinion, one piece of music belongs to the category and another doesn't, it should not be read as disparaging, or hating, or scorning, or laden in any way with any emotional over/undertone. I am only too well aware that there are some posters who take many opportunities to scorn, disparage etc...and that can make it difficult for the more sober commenter to be taken at face value.


Too true. I hesitated even to mention musique concrete as a specific, not wishing to give anyone ammunition for their personal crusade.


----------



## DeepR

Eurovision Song Contest is usually way beyond my boundary of music. Eno's ambient albums are well within.


----------



## Guest

some guy said:


> Alrighty then. I've read the rest of the thread now.
> 
> The position about Cage's philosophy seems pretty well entrenched. There doesn't seem to be any reason behind it, but maybe that's what makes it so entrenched. If there were reason, there wouldn't need to be any entrenchment.
> 
> No reason, but I'm gonna give dislodging another try.
> 
> For everyone who thinks Cage's musical piece _4'33"_ is not a piece of music but a philosophical treatise, here's some questions to consider, starting with "Why?" Why do you think this? If it is a philosophical treatise, why isn't it presented as such? Besides, how many other philosophical treatises do you know that have been published by a major publishing company as a piece of music? How many other philosophical treatises do you know that have been performed, numerous times, by professional musicians?
> 
> That's for starters. Next, "why _4'33"_?" What about _0'00",_ which is sometimes referred to as _4'33" n.2?_ What about the _Freeman Etudes?_ What about _101?_ What about _Apartment House 1776?_ Why do you single out _4'33"_ to be philosophy rather than music? Indeed, what _is_ the philosophy being expressed by this piece of philosophy? That there are sounds other than the ones intended by a composer. True enough. Not terribly philosophical. That you can listen to those sounds and derive pleasure from that listening. Again, true enough. Slightly more philosophical but still, not very. That the sounds that a composer doesn't intend can have as much virtue as the ones that are intended. That's more philosophical, but that's not really what people seem to be on about when they say that _4'33"_ is philosophy rather than music.
> 
> Here's a philosophy: democracy. The idea that all members of a group need to be treated equally. Much more philosophical than anything _4'33"_ is trying "to say." It's the idea behind quite a number of pieces of music. Schoenberg's _Variations_ for orchestra for one. Gerhard's symphony number 4 for another. Boulez's _Structures Book 1,_ which, if Ligeti was right, is not music but a psychological disorder.
> 
> Here's another philosophy, that however far we stray from home, we always have to return. That's an idea, too. And it generated a lot of philosophical treatises that masquerade as music, too. Beethoven's ninth symphony, for instance, which (as I pointed out already, and which has been studiously ignored) is full of all sorts of other philosophical ideas, too, which determine in large part how at least the last movement plays out. (As it were.)
> 
> None of these other examples of philosophical (or philosophically motivated) music get called "philosophy," though. Only _4'33"._ Not even other pieces by Cage, which illustrate his philosophical ideas about intentionality, get called "more philosophy than music." Well, they do, but not by TC posters.:devil:
> 
> So what gives? Why _4'33"_ and not _Roaratorio?_ Why _4'33"_ and not _Incidental Music_ by George Brecht? Why _4'33"_ and not the Resurrection symphony by Mahler? Why _4'33"_ and not _Grosse Fuge? by Beethoven?_


As you don't direct your questions at anyone in particular, I hope you don't mind my attempting a response to those things I can answer.

I'm slightly puzzled as to why you would _expect _an answer to the question, "If this is 'philosophy', not music, why not treat this or that in the same way?" It would depend on whether the work was patently 'music', such as Beethoven's 9th, so no answer needed, or whether anyone here knows the work. (I know none of those others that you've listed. In fact, I only know _about 4'33"_, having not until today actually heard a performance). Neither of these are much of an answer, but if the obvious needs stating, I've just stated it.

If you've watched the TED lecture, you'll get that the presenter's condition (I'm going to paraphrase here) is that to qualify as music, it must be a performance by the performers of organised sound, according to the instructions of the composer. He argues that since the performers didn't perform any sounds (in fact, explicitly instructed not to play their instruments) it doesn't qualify. That's fine by me.

Whether 4'33" *is *'philosophy' is irrelevant to whether some here would accept it as music: does it come within or beyond their boundaries (or their grey areas)? The fact that one or two posters have suggested what they think it *is *is 'about music', or 'philosophy', or 'silence', and that these things can be shown to be unacceptable (or even demonstrably false) does not establish an argument to counter what they might also think it _*isn't*_.

On a small point, whilst there may be a specified definition of 'treatise', there is no reason why a piece of music (or non-music), a painting or sculpture or installation, a TV programme or a movie can't be regarded as explorations of a philosophy or a philosophical viewpoint. But since no-one but you has used the word, we needn't get too hung up about it.


----------



## Stavrogin

some guy said:


> No.
> 
> I already replied to you. (And there was no owing about it.) You rejected that reply. For me to specify, at this point, what makes a performance of 4'33" good or bad would just be embarrassing. "What? Why that's the same thing that makes any performance of anything good or bad!"
> 
> Which is what I already said.


I am just asking you to be more specific, but if you have no will to reply, fine.
Maybe you took it as a question with an agenda, which it is not, because I agree with you on the matter (4'33'' _is_ music, its performance _can_ be assessed, etc). I was just curious if your criteria were the same as mine.
(Because mine are not the same I use to assess a performance of a piano sonata, and I don't see how they could be the same, given that there is no piano playing).


----------



## Guest

MacLeod,

The question remains, "why _4'33"?_" Why out of all these other philosophical pieces is _4'33"?_ singled out to be "philosophy and not music"?

Beethoven's ninth, just by the way, is no more patently music than _4'33"_ is. But that's just my opinion, and as we have amply demonstrated, the point of conversation is to express opinions, not to defend them, not to examine them, not to counter them, even, except with contrary opinions, which are only to be expressed, not defended or examined or countered, except....

It is certainly not to exchange anything, though the word "exchange" has been used to describe bare assertions that should not be questioned, ever, by anyone.


----------



## Stavrogin

MacLeod said:


> What do you mean, you didn't "necessarily say"? You said, "some measure of objectivity must be imposed". The imploding universe and people losing their internet tempers is irrelevant. *Either you think an objectivity must be imposed, or you don't. I don't*


The question is not "to impose it", otherwise we would be intolerant fundamentalists.
The key here is distinguish the subject from the object.
The famous motto "de gustibus non disputandum est" (tastes are not to be discussed) is a true phrase, but it's a phrase about the subject (the listener), not the object (the work).
It does mean: everyone can legitimately have their own tastes/definitions/preferences.
It does not mean: every work has the same artistic value.

If someone comes up saying that he prefers Lady Gaga over Beethoven, no one can dispute their discretion to do so.
This does not mean that Lady Gaga is a better artist than Beethoven.


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## Guest

Stavrogin said:


> I am just asking you to be more specific, but if you have no will to reply, fine.


Nice try, but I ain't bitin'. I'm asking you why you're asking me to be more specific in this case when neither you nor anyone else even feels the tiniest bit of need for similar specificity regarding any other piece of music.

As soon as that happens, then maybe....


----------



## Stavrogin

some guy said:


> Nice try, but I ain't bitin'. I'm asking you why you're asking me to be more specific in this case when neither you nor anyone else even feels the tiniest bit of need for similar specificity regarding any other piece of music.
> 
> As soon as that happens, then maybe....


Because it is a peculiar piece, we can admit that. Some people are claiming it is not even music.

However, I'll tell you what my criteria is. I mostly look at the director's attitude and gestures, especially at the beginning and at the end. I have seen performances where the conductor clearly over-acted, almost as if looking for the audience smiles/laughter (which actually came). I believe this approach is slightly off Cage's intentions.
Whatever else happens during the 4'33'', instead, does not affect in any way my assessment of the performance, because whatever it is, it is exactly what is supposed to happen.


----------



## Guest

some guy said:


> MacLeod,
> 
> The question remains, "why _4'33"?_" Why out of all these other philosophical pieces is _4'33"?_ singled out to be "philosophy and not music"?
> 
> Beethoven's ninth, just by the way, is no more patently music than _4'33"_ is. But that's just my opinion, and as we have amply demonstrated, the point of conversation is to express opinions, not to defend them, not to examine them, not to counter them, even, except with contrary opinions, which are only to be expressed, not defended or examined or countered, except....
> 
> It is certainly not to exchange anything, though the word "exchange" has been used to describe bare assertions that should not be questioned, ever, by anyone.


Well, I didn't name 4'33" - you'll have to ask the first person who did (the OP, I think). But yes, I did respond with my view on it.

As for exchange of opinions (and challenge of them, or not) you may have noticed that some (millionrainbows for example) get very vexed if we don't make clear when we're offering opinions as opposed to obejctified facts. So, in this thread, I've gone out of my way to state that these are my opinions, not so they are not challenged, but so they are not mistaken for objective assertions. I'm happy to be challenged about my opinions, but, like you, reserve the right to choose not to answer some enquiries.

So, to Beethoven's 9th. If you think it's 'not patently music', what is it that introduces the ambiguties?



Stavrogin said:


> It does not mean: every work has the same artistic value.
> 
> If someone comes up saying that he prefers Lady Gaga over Beethoven, no one can dispute their discretion to do so.
> This does not mean that Lady Gaga is a better artist than Beethoven.


No, you're right, it does not mean that Gaga _is _a better artist than Beethoven, but that does not mean a legitimate case could not be made by those who adore Gaga that she is. Since 'artistic value' does not have a fixed definition, there will be plenty that _could _argue that every work has the same value; I doubt that many would, however, since most will want to assert the superiority of _this _over _that_.


----------



## Wood

mmsbls said:


> Maybe my reply to PetrB makes this unnecessary. This is a music forum where we discuss all matters about classical music. The overwhelming majority of posts are subjective where members just give their feelings, beliefs, opinions on various matters. This thread is no different. I am simply interested in where others draw the line on music. My OP was filled with subjective statements (e.g. "For me..."). I just want that from others - just like most other threads.


Sure, and my feeling, belief and opinion is that these boundaries are arbitrary, and of no real meaning, other than to give individuals the opportunity to diss works like 4'33.

For me, boundaries have no relevance to the experience of listening to music. I do not feel the need to describe a birdsong, 4'33 or a tune in my head as 'music' or 'not music'. It makes no difference to the sensations I get.


----------



## Guest

Wood said:


> Sure, and my feeling, belief and opinion is that these boundaries are arbitrary, and of no real meaning, other than to give individuals the opportunity to diss works like 4'33.
> 
> For me, boundaries have no relevance to the experience of listening to music. I do not feel the need to describe a birdsong, 4'33 or a tune in my head as 'music' or 'not music'. It makes no difference to the sensations I get.


I like your last paragraph. Clear and unambiguous. Thank you.
I disagree (again) that in discussing boundaries, it's being used an opportunity to 'diss' anything.


----------



## Jobis

PetrB said:


> To slightly alter the line from Peter Shaffer's_ Amadeus_, "Write it down (or play it / record it), Wolfie. It is no good to anyone if it is just in your head."
> 
> *Music does not exist unless it is sounding.*
> 
> Cage's score indicates duration, _with the sound content left to chance_. The score is implicit (like any other) that it be performed --it is in three movements of timed durations -- and that includes the performance be in front of an audience; the ambient sound in the hall from the audience is what is 'being played.'
> 
> The piece is still very much about "sound." The score _in performance_ is very much about catalyzing the sound, and on that level it is clearly, then 'organized sound' -- as taking place in a very calculated setting.
> 
> No one has to like the idea, but I personally think it simply pig-headed stubborn to not want to think of the performed piece as other than 'a piece of music.'
> 
> I hasten to add that Cage _wrote only one piece like this,_ that he was entirely aware of what it was. The resultant in-hall reaction, providing the sound, is very much aligned with the intent. and he knew there only needed to be one such piece.


I would disagree that imagined music is not music, just because it is not realized doesn't make it less musical. Ideas can be real, just as a circle cannot exist in reality but it still exists as an idea.

I am willing to concede I was being pig headed about the whole silence thing, and my indignation was misdirected. I just object to the idea of incidental background noise as music, when there is no intention behind it; it is a process or an experiment for creating music, just as Beethoven sat at his keyboard drafting up his piano sonatas; I don't view a random creative process as music in the sense of it being realized.

I don't remember who said it but one composer wrote that 'I don't write experimental music, all my experiments take place during the writing process.' Which resonates with me; I think there must be an ideal of a piece of music, almost that exists in the realm of ideas or plato's forms. Just as no pianist will play Beethoven's sonata's the way he imagined them, so music cannot exist without a preconceived idea about how it should sound.

If silence was the ideal then I am willing to concede that 4'33 is a piece of music, but then it is absolutely not about the incidental noise, but how accurately we can create an atmosphere of silence.


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## Jobis

I just noticed how I double-talked and trashed my own initial point in this thread... ahh well.


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## Stavrogin

mmsbls said:


> I'm not really interested in definitions of music. I want to know where other TC members believe their boundaries are.


My boundaries (which are not fixed) derive from a sort of match between Berio's subjective take (what the listener intends to hear as music) and a somewhat objective definition of music.

Let's leave 4'33'' aside for a moment.
At the other end* (let's say at the maximalist end), Merzbow's work.

(turn down the volume...)





Is that music?
Personally, I intend to hear it as a form that Merzbow uses to express himself by means of organized sound.
So, to me it is.

* but we all know opposite ends touch themselves.


----------



## Guest

Stavrogin said:


> My boundaries (which are not fixed) derive from a sort of match between Berio's subjective take (what the listener intends to hear as music) and a somewhat objective definition of music.
> 
> Let's leave 4'33'' aside for a moment.
> At the other end* (let's say at the maximalist end), Merzbow's work.
> 
> (turn down the volume...)
> 
> Is that music?
> Personally, I intend to hear it as a form that Merzbow uses to express himself by means of organized sound.
> So, to me it is.
> 
> * but we all know opposite ends touch themselves.


This would fit with my three conditions - it's music, to my ears, though I'm not about to go out and buy it now.

However, referring to the condition in the TED talk I posted, there are no written instructions for the performers to follow, are there? Would it fail his criteria?


----------



## Guest

MacLeod said:


> So, to Beethoven's 9th. If you think it's 'not patently music', what is it that introduces the ambiguties?


One, I do not think that Beethoven's 9th is not patently music. To get this idea out of my post requires some pretty high-powered distortion. Pretty high-powered indeed.

Two, what does ambiguity have to do with anything? Here's the sky all blue and clear and then WHAM there's this bidness about introducing ambiguities. Say what?

Three, I think you should consider dispensing with the rhetorical tactic of "agreeing" with a point and then going on to say that "that does not mean" that such and such other thing (possibly not even connected to the discussion) cannot be argued. You've done that twice now, in close succession, and we're on ta ya.

Four, why are we to consider the conditions in the TED talk you posted to be at all binding? That is a very silly talk by someone who does not have a clue what he's talking about.

(Just by the way, there _are_ written instructions in _4'33"_ for the performers to follow. You did know that, right?)


----------



## Stavrogin

MacLeod said:


> This would fit with my three conditions - it's music, to my ears, though I'm not about to go out and buy it now.
> 
> However, referring to the condition in the TED talk I posted, there are no written instructions for the performers to follow, are there? Would it fail his criteria?


Sorry, can you tell me what are the conditions in the TED talk? I don't have 15 minutes available for focused listening now


----------



## Jobis

Stavrogin said:


> My boundaries (which are not fixed) derive from a sort of match between Berio's subjective take (what the listener intends to hear as music) and a somewhat objective definition of music.
> 
> Let's leave 4'33'' aside for a moment.
> At the other end* (let's say at the maximalist end), Merzbow's work.
> 
> (turn down the volume...)
> 
> Is that music?
> Personally, I intend to hear it as a form that Merzbow uses to express himself by means of organized sound.
> So, to me it is.
> 
> * but we all know opposite ends touch themselves.


Merzbow makes music, and it is awesome.


----------



## Guest

some guy said:


> One, I do not think that Beethoven's 9th is not patently music. To get this idea out of my post requires some pretty high-powered distortion. Pretty high-powered indeed.
> 
> Two, what does ambiguity have to do with anything? Here's the sky all blue and clear and then WHAM there's this bidness about introducing ambiguities. Say what?
> 
> Three, I think you should consider dispensing with the rhetorical tactic of "agreeing" with a point and then going on to say that "that does not mean" that such and such other thing (possibly not even connected to the discussion) cannot be argued. You've done that twice now, in close succession, and we're on ta ya.
> 
> Four, why are we to consider the conditions in the TED talk you posted to be at all binding? That is a very silly talk by someone who does not have a clue what he's talking about.
> 
> (Just by the way, there _are_ written instructions in _4'33"_ for the performers to follow. You did know that, right?)


OK. What you said was,



> _Beethoven's ninth, just by the way, is no more patently music than __4'33" is_


One. I overinterpreted what you said. I withdraw that, and I'll withdraw the questions that followed (about ambiguity, so that dispenses with Two).
Three. I'll use whatever rhetorical devices I wish. ("We" are on to you and yours too, dontcha know?)
Four. "We" don't have to consider the TED talk binding at all. I found it by accident. I thought it worth considering. That's all.

And, yes, I did know that there are written instructions. That's why I mentioned it.

Finally, returning to Beethoven's 9th - you expressed your opinion, and went on to say...



> But that's just my opinion, and as we have amply demonstrated, the point of conversation is to express opinions, not to defend them, not to examine them, not to counter them, even, except with contrary opinions, which are only to be expressed, not defended or examined or countered, except....
> 
> It is certainly not to exchange anything, though the word "exchange" has been used to describe bare assertions that should not be questioned, ever, by anyone.


Now, I wouldn't like to overinterpret again, but I'd say you would prefer it if there _were _exchange, challenge, examination, counter etc etc. So, would you like to offer a defence of your opinion, that is, that LvB's 9th is "no more patently music than..." etc?


----------



## Guest

Stavrogin said:


> Sorry, can you tell me what are the conditions in the TED talk? I don't have 15 minutes available for focused listening now


On his presentation, it says



> *Works of music*
> 
> A rough intuition:
> 
> A work is a work of music only if it is made up of sounds organised by the work's composer.
> 
> A little more precisely...
> 
> It is a necessary condition of a work's being a work of music that its performances can only comprise sounds produced by performers of the work as a result of their following the composer's instructions.


----------



## Stavrogin

MacLeod said:


> On his presentation, it says


Thanks.
Can I try and re-word those two conditions? It seems to me that they imply:
1) A composer giving instructions
2) Performer(s) being the sole responsible of the outcome of those instructions

The second one is too much in my view.
The reason I think this is connected not only to 4'33' but to art in general. I think of Anish Kapoor's installations for example.








Works that are remarkably enriched by the viewer's interaction.


----------



## Guest

Stavrogin said:


> Thanks.
> Can I try and re-word those two conditions? It seems to me that they imply:
> 1) A composer giving instructions
> 2) Performer(s) being the sole responsible of the outcome of those instructions
> 
> The second one is too much in my view.
> The reason I think this is connected not only to 4'33' but to art in general. I think of Anish Kapoor's installations for example.
> 
> Works that are remarkably enriched by the viewer's interaction.


I took the conditions as minimum; that is, there is nothing to say that there can't be additional contributions (such as that provided by the interaction of the audience or the local environment). I also presumed that 'instructions' are not necessary where composer and performer are one are the same - though they may of course still be produced.

I'm not sure about the comparison with the Anish Kapoor where there is a very solid material artefact with which the observer can engage.


----------



## Stavrogin

MacLeod said:


> I took the conditions as minimum; that is, there is nothing to say that there can't be additional contributions (such as that provided by the interaction of the audience or the local environment). I also presumed that 'instructions' are not necessary where composer and performer are one are the same - though they may of course still be produced.
> 
> I'm not sure about the comparison with the Anish Kapoor where there is a very solid material artefact with which the observer can engage.


Eh but the wording "its performances can *only* comprise sounds produced by performers..." is quite clearly excluding other components, imo.

Anish Kapoor's Bean is a lot about reflection, thus of course its observers and everything that happens to be reflected.


----------



## Guest

Stavrogin said:


> Eh but the wording "its performances can *only* comprise sounds produced by performers..." is quite clearly excluding other components, imo.
> 
> Anish Kapoor's Bean is a lot about reflection, thus of course its observers and everything that happens to be reflected.


Well, this may seem picky, but the 'only' is not in the right place for that precise an interpretation. It would need to be 'sounds produced only by performers' or 'by performers only'. We can't be sure without checking with the Prof. direct of course, but in your interpretation of what he's written, you might have to consider excluding from music, anything where the audience makes a contribution - such as a singalong!


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## Nereffid

How about
"It is a necessary condition of a work's being a work of music that its performances can only comprise sounds produced as a result of the performers of the work following the composer's instructions."

So if my composition requires that the performers be standing on a shingle beach, then the sounds of waves on the shore, seabirds, and whatever else might be going on at that location are implicit in the instructions.


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## Stavrogin

Nereffid said:


> How about
> "It is a necessary condition of a work's being a work of music that its performances can only comprise sounds produced as a result of the performers of the work following the composer's instructions."
> 
> So if my composition requires that the performers be standing on a shingle beach, then the sounds of waves on the shore, seabirds, and whatever else might be going on at that location are implicit in the instructions.


This is closer to my view.
"Sounds produced as a result of the instructions" is quite different to "Sounds produced by performers".


----------



## Guest

Nereffid said:


> "It is a necessary condition of a work's being a work of music that its performances can only comprise sounds produced as a result of the performers of the work following the composer's instructions."


Well, you just excluded every single piece of music ever written, then. Because you just excluded works that include rests, not to mention sections marked "Tacet."

Plus, you just excluded all improvisation and all folk (i.e., not composed by a particular person, necessarily). How come?



Nereffid said:


> So if my composition requires that the performers be standing on a shingle beach, then the sounds of waves on the shore, seabirds, and whatever else might be going on at that location are implicit in the instructions.


This seems, on the face of it, to contradict what you just said. Implicit in the instructions? Really? So for Bizet's symphony in C the sounds of coughing and the rustling of programs are implicit in the instructions?

Hmmm.


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## PetrB

MacLeod said:


> On his presentation, it says


"Works of music

A rough intuition:

A work is a work of music only if it is made up of sounds organised by the work's composer.

A little more precisely...

It is a necessary condition of a work's being a work of music that its performances can only comprise sounds produced by performers of the work as a result of their following the composer's instructions."

By those criteria, I'm thinking Mr. Cage's 4'33'' qualifies


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## Guest

PetrB said:


> "Works of music
> 
> A rough intuition:
> 
> A work is a work of music only if it is made up of sounds organised by the work's composer.
> 
> A little more precisely...
> 
> It is a necessary condition of a work's being a work of music that its performances can only comprise sounds produced by performers of the work as a result of their following the composer's instructions."
> 
> By those criteria, I'm thinking Mr. Cage's 4'33'' qualifies


Eh? And if they produce no sounds?


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## Celloman

What is music? It all depends on your definition.


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## Stavrogin

some guy said:


> Well, you just excluded every single piece of music ever written, then. Because you just excluded works that include rests, not to mention sections marked "Tacet."


Rests and "tacet" sections still include sounds, you know that very well 



some guy said:


> Plus, you just excluded all improvisation and all folk (i.e., not composed by a particular person, necessarily). How come?


How so? 
The term "the composer" is pretty much like "the legislator", it doesn't necessarily imply a precise individual nor the fact that it has to be only one. Improvisation and folk are still the initiative of "someone" (even if unknown and not singular).



some guy said:


> This seems, on the face of it, to contradict what you just said. Implicit in the instructions? Really? So for Bizet's symphony in C the sounds of coughing and the rustling of programs are implicit in the instructions?
> 
> Hmmm.


No, but they are not constitutive elements of that Symphony. That work is that work regardless of coughs and rustling.


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## millionrainbows

This thread's premise (boundaries of what is or is not music) is inherently biased, and John Cage is being used, again, as a "whipping boy" for traditionalists.

I'm really more interested in approaching and discussing different kinds of art and music, rather than arguing with others who have withdrawn from engagement with the art in question, who choose to define it or put boundaries around it as a way of judging it, rejecting it, or degrading it.

I approach music with an open, receptive mind, so that I can experience it as the composer intended it to be experienced, and meet him halfway, as I do with all art I wish to engage with.

The critics of 'music which lies on the extreme boundaries' are being inflexible in their subjectivity. This attitude of 'boundaries' is not a true engagement with the work, because they have pre-defined it.

Art is not 'all subjectivity' or 'all opinion.' There is an objective dimension to it, which involves an interaction with the composer and his work. 

I don't think this idea of 'boundaries' results from any sincere effort to engage with music; these boundaries are simply rejections of art based on subjective bias and mindset.

Same old song, with a different tune...been there, done that.


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## Blancrocher

Perhaps it really is true as some psychologists say: if you try to impose boundaries on experience, you end up with a cage.


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## millionrainbows

Blancrocher said:


> Perhaps it really is true as some psychologists say: if you try to impose boundaries on experience, you end up with a cage.


No pun intended? That reminds me of those cages in Francis Bacon's paintings.


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## mmsbls

tdc said:


> I agree with Berio's quote that music is whatever the listener intends to hear as music. The boundaries on this are clearly subjective. I completely understand how many would not view 4'33" as music, but in an over arching sense I agree with Cage's idea that all sounds (one could take this further to everything - since everything is vibration) _could_ be perceived as music - if the listener intends to hear it that way.
> 
> If one's definition of music is organized sound then I think 4'33" qualifies because it is a space of time the composer has organized in which everyone is to listen to the sounds of their surroundings in order to perceive their musicality. It is only if a listener makes a conscious choice to subjectively perceive these sounds as not being musical that they cease to be music - to that individual.


I've been thinking of the Berio quote for awhile now. I do feel Berio's definition is quite reasonable and have no problem with someone who agrees with it. I tried to imagine a scenario where I might view unintentional sounds as music. I thought of an odd stone formation where wind could blow through and create tones that constituted a nice melody. My first thought was that I would have to consider that melody music, but after more consideration, I feel those sounds would be musical, in the sense of resembling music, but would still not be music. I still feel that I require the creator(s) to intentionally organize the sound.

Incidentally, one criticism of my view would be that I cannot necessarily tell if what I'm hearing is music. In some cases I would need to do more than listen to something to make that determination. I can see some viewing that as absurd or maybe just wrong, but I still feel strongly (for now) that music must have an intentional composer.


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## mmsbls

some guy said:


> Next, "why _4'33"_?"


I'm not sure if your post was aimed at me, but since I brought up 4'33" in the OP, I'll say something about why I referred to 4'33".

4'33" itself is not really relevant to this thread. The first paragraph asks people to select a work, _real or imagined_, and explain why they feel the work is not music. The work itself would simply act as an example helping to explain the poster's boundary. I then went on to give my boundary along with a work. 4'33" was the most famous example (to me) of a work that I felt did not contain intentional sounds.

I honestly did not expect the thread to focus on 4'33" or even to discuss the work much at all. I thought people would focus on their boundaries or reasons for others' boundaries. In my case this was the nature of intentional sounds.

In hindsight it was an enormous mistake to mention 4'33". It is a lightning rod bringing out everyone's biases (both pro and con). I should have simply described a theoretical work instead.



MacLeod said:


> Whether 4'33" *is *'philosophy' is irrelevant to whether some here would accept it as music: does it come within or beyond their boundaries (or their grey areas)?


Thank you. Very well said.

I'll just simply say I view 4'33" as an interesting and courageous work by a serious composer.


----------



## mmsbls

millionrainbows said:


> This thread's premise (boundaries of what is or is not music) is inherently biased, and John Cage is being used, again, as a "whipping boy" for traditionalists.
> 
> I'm really more interested in approaching and discussing different kinds of art and music, rather than arguing with others who have withdrawn from engagement with the art in question, who choose to define it or put boundaries around it as a way of judging it, rejecting it, or degrading it.
> 
> I approach music with an open, receptive mind, so that I can experience it as the composer intended it to be experienced, and meet him halfway, as I do with all art I wish to engage with.
> 
> The critics of 'music which lies on the extreme boundaries' are being inflexible in their subjectivity. This attitude of 'boundaries' is not a true engagement with the work, because they have pre-defined it.
> 
> Art is not 'all subjectivity' or 'all opinion.' There is an objective dimension to it, which involves an interaction with the composer and his work.
> 
> I don't think this idea of 'boundaries' results from any sincere effort to engage with music; these boundaries are simply rejections of art based on subjective bias and mindset.
> 
> Same old song, with a different tune...been there, done that.


I again think you have misunderstood my views and intentions. I don't know why you think having boundaries is biased. We all have boundaries in general and in relation to what is music. Do you think we're all biased?

I know some people dismiss or degrade Cage's works. Do you think I do? If so, what gave you that idea?

Why do you think that placing boundaries on art in any way is judging, rejecting, or degrading it? And why would you think that defining art is withdrawing from engagement? The boundary I discussed in my OP is relevant to Cage's 4'33" and Mozart's Symphony No. 41. Do you think I'm rejecting or degrading those works?

Why does placing boundaries on what is music pre-define any work?

Maybe you think the answers are obvious, but I certainly do not.

I think you and I could have a long, interesting discussion of 4'33". We likely would agree on the vast majority of our ideas concerning the work (based on your earlier post). I don't think the fact that I think it's not music whereas you do would in any way lessen the discussion. Most likely it would not even come up.


----------



## SONNET CLV

mmsbls said:


> So please, let me know where you draw the boundaries of music.


I signed up for this Forum after reading through this thread on "musical boundaries" - aka, "comments on Cage's 4'33"". I was impressed, informed, entertained, and, at times, mortified. Overall, a great job on the thread.

This is my first post here. A few thoughts (most of which are already presented in this thread).

The boundary of music is where we as human consciousnesses set it. Without human consciousness, there is no music. Does a bird make music? Only when a conscious mind assigns the sounds of the warbling the definition of "music" do we get "bird song". That creates the boundary.

Within that boundary, any sound or silence can fall as music if designated as such. That's the funny and strange thing about art. Art itself is an artifice, an artificial thing, a designation or a creation, whatever. The boundary becomes, perhaps, hearing itself. Music is the art appreciated by the sense of hearing.

Every piece of "music" relies upon silence as a major component. That's where rests come in on the score page. In a larger sense, when a symphony orchestra plays, no instrument ever plays all of its notes (except maybe a gong or cymbals) all of the time, and no instrument ever plays all of the time. In fact, every piece of music is shaped by silence, much more silence than sound.

I suppose 4 minutes and 33 seconds of "white noise" could certainly be designated as "music" in the same way that 4 minutes and 33 seconds of silence is a musical composition by Cage. Certainly, Cage allows us to think about what music is, what a composition is, and what the role of the listener is perhaps better with his short silent piece than any other musical composition prior. Testament to that is this very thread.

(But I don't mean to imply that Cage's work is just about silence, since happening sounds were intended to become part of the piece, such as Frank Zappa's cough in the recording of the piece I have on disc, or the boo's from the audience, which I'm sure accompanied several performances of the work.)

I consider that a composer "writes music". But … if music is sound, as some insist (whether the sound is organized, designated, randomized, whatever…), then what exactly is the composer writing onto a piece of lined paper … or unlined paper in the cases of many contemporary "graphic" scores? Is Bach's B minor Mass, on the page, music? That was Bach's contribution - a completely silent thing: a page of ink jottings that a deaf person can look at, and possibly appreciate. No hearing involved. Did Bach write music?

Is Cage's jotting down of "directions" as to the performance of 4'33" any different as "music" than is Bach's jottings down of the B minor Mass?

I have CD copies of both the abovementioned works, the Cage and the Bach, on my shelf. Do I have a musical work on that shelf? It's completely silent, I would propose, as it resides there in its plastic jewel case. How do I possess the music? By rendering it through a mechanical instrument (my stereo system). Neither Bach nor Cage wrote for my stereo system, nor are the sounds rendered by my stereo system the sounds of actual instruments. No current sound reproduction system can capture the exact essence of timber and overtones (minus the mechanical noise of electrical circuits, tubes, transistors, wires, whatever) evident in reproduced music. So, is this music?

I happen to have the scores for both these works, too. They sit on a different shelf, but are they anymore the music than the CDs are?

When a conductor reads through a piece of music in preparation for performance, is he reading music?

And no written piece of music can ever be performed exactly the same way twice, even by the same musician. What the composer hears in his head and what he hears from a performance will not be the same. Cage, I understand, disliked recordings because they locked a piece of music into an unnatural strict form. We may talk about Karajan's Beethoven Fifth, but if the conductor conducted the piece more than once, we do not have "Karajan's Beethoven Fifth" - we have only one manifestation of it.

What exactly is a piece of music? When we "hear" a piece of music, all we really hear is a fractional moment of sound at any given instant. In fact, how long that instant is creates a paradox. If we continue to slice down a second of time - in half, in quarters, in eighths, in billionths … -- we can always come to exactly a half of that last slice. So … what are we really hearing? Mostly memory? The memory of sounds that came before added imaginatively to that single real slice of an infinitely small moment of "sound"? What exactly is the Mahler Eighth Symphony in such terms?

Music must remain a definition, an artifice of consciousness, an "art" form that remains personal to each one of us. You may or may not extend your definition as far as my own, but I attempt to keep my ears open to new sounds of music, and especially to new silences in music, since silence remains the major feature of all music, much as the empty spaces in and around a sculpture gives it its form.

A few spoke of "imagined music" in this thread. Some discounted such as music at all. Yet, we use the term "music" when we say "imagined music is not music." If it's not music, what is it? Present that phrase without using the word "music": "Imagined _____ is not music." I currently hold an unwritten symphony, my own, inside my head. It's a piece of music. It's a symphony. That piece of music will likely die with me, but I still speak of it as a "piece of music". What else can it be?

If the sense of hearing forms the boundary of music, then music "heard" in the mind's ear is legitimate. Just as legitimate as is the image of your mother's face (whether the woman is alive or dead) as it exists in your mind or memory. Thoughts are real things. Thus, so is imagined music.

I thank all of you for this intriguing thread. It proved fascinating to read, and compelling enough to spur me to join in. For a first post here, I hope I have done your board justice.


----------



## Sid James

For the sake of interest, here is *Gyorgy Ligeti* on the matter (an old post of mine that includes his comments on boundaries between art and life) :

http://www.talkclassical.com/16940-gy-rgy-ligeti-3.html#post68849

I remember reading an interview with *Edgard Varese *and he mentions John Cage in a similar way. He respects him but he says he's got a different definition of music. If people want to I can take effort to find the Varese quote. Let me know.


----------



## mmsbls

SONNET CLV said:


> If the sense of hearing forms the boundary of music, then music "heard" in the mind's ear is legitimate. Just as legitimate as is the image of your mother's face (whether the woman is alive or dead) as it exists in your mind or memory. Thoughts are real things. Thus, so is imagined music.


Thanks for your post, and welcome to TalkClassical.

I agree that thoughts are real things, and the "musical sounds heard" in the mind are, in fact, music. I think sheet music is music. I like the definition "organized sound", but here it seems to fail since neither thoughts nor sheets of marked paper are sounds. Maybe "organized sounds or representations of sounds" would be better. Defining music is very hard, and that's why I chose not to ask for definitions but rather boundaries. I think it's easier.


----------



## ArtMusic

Oh, another valide reason in this case is that five billion folks on this planet would laugh if suggested 4'33" is music.


----------



## Guest

millionrainbows said:


> This thread's premise (boundaries of what is or is not music) is inherently biased, and John Cage is being used, again, as a "whipping boy" for traditionalists.
> 
> I'm really more interested in approaching and discussing different kinds of art and music, rather than *arguing with others who have withdrawn from engagement with the art in question, who choose to define it or put boundaries around it as a way of judging it, rejecting it, or degrading it.*
> 
> I approach music with an open, receptive mind, so that I can experience it as the composer intended it to be experienced, and meet him halfway, as I do with all art I wish to engage with.
> 
> *The critics of 'music* which lies on the extreme boundaries' are being *inflexible in their subjectivity*. This attitude of 'boundaries' is not a true engagement with the work, because they have pre-defined it.
> 
> Art is not 'all subjectivity' or 'all opinion.' There is an objective dimension to it, which involves an interaction with the composer and his work.
> 
> *I don't think this idea of 'boundaries' results from any sincere effort to engage* with music; these boundaries are simply rejections of art based on subjective bias and mindset.
> 
> Same old song, with a different tune...been there, done that.


First, why does it matter whether some of us, discussing the idea of musical boundaries, are considering whether 4'33" is or isn't music? If we 'reject' the piece as music, why does it matter? It can, and has been explicitly, accepted as something else of value.

Second, perhaps you'd like to be very explicit about who here is being inflexible, close-minded, rejecting and degrading. At present, you seem to be directing your accusations at anyone who has had the temerity to express an opinion contrary to yours. I reject all your accusations.

Third, if you don't want to 'argue' with others about the subject matter, why do you post in the thread?

Finally, art IS all subjective opinion. There is no objective dimension to it.


----------



## arpeggio

*A Long Time Ago in a Thread Far, Far Away.....*

I have been hesitant to submit an observation because I have nothing new to say and many of the above entries are excellent. I apologize for not submitting something new but it appears that we are covering the same ground that has been explored in other threads.

As far as my personal subjective feeling I view music as a sound painting. Tonality is just one spectrum of sound colors. Atonality another. Randomness another.

As far as _4'33"_, I personally do not consider it music. To me it is theater. I wonder what type a discussion we would be having if it was a play by Ionesco that had an actor walking on a stage and doing nothing.

I have many friends here and elsewhere who do consider it music. So what? So what if only 500,000 (.1%) of the people on this planet think it is music? I seriously doubt that if the majority went on a vendetta against _4'33"_, it would change any of their minds. I do not believe that if dislike Cage or Stockhausen or Boulez that constantly repeating this animus somehow proves that my esthetic's are superior to others.


----------



## Guest

Rather than focus on an individual work, and consider the proposition that _appears _to be being advanced, that silence (and I don't, of course, mean the silences between the sounds) could be classed as 'music'. Perhaps someone could clarify - is that what is being advanced, or am I misunderstanding (or over-interpreting) again?


----------



## PetrB

millionrainbows said:


> No pun intended? That reminds me of those cages in Francis Bacon's paintings.


Which reminds me of this / these








Which in turn reminds me of Mark-Anthony Turnage's _Three Screaming Popes_


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## Wood

mmsbls said:


> *I again think you have misunderstood my views and intentions. *I don't know why you think having boundaries is biased. We all have boundaries in general and in relation to what is music. Do you think we're all biased?
> 
> I know some people dismiss or degrade Cage's works. Do you think I do? If so, what gave you that idea?
> 
> *Why do you think that placing boundaries on art in any way is judging, rejecting, or degrading it? *And why would you think that defining art is withdrawing from engagement? The boundary I discussed in my OP is relevant to Cage's 4'33" and Mozart's Symphony No. 41. Do you think I'm rejecting or degrading those works?
> 
> *Why does placing boundaries on what is music pre-define any work?*
> 
> Maybe you think the answers are obvious, but I certainly do not.
> 
> I think you and I could have a long, interesting discussion of 4'33". We likely would agree on the vast majority of our ideas concerning the work (based on your earlier post). I don't think the fact that I think it's not music whereas you do would in any way lessen the discussion. Most likely it would not even come up.


I have no doubt from your previous postings that you are open to all types of new music and don't see anything wrong with your intentions in this thread.

My difficulty is with the concept of setting boundaries. The whole point of new works is that they create something not previously done. If the artist goes beyond these artificial boundaries, the boundary setter will by definition be lost to the work.

My starting point is that the artist as the creator is in charge, and my role is to be as open to his work and what he is attempting as I can. Otherwise, by being closed to the work, or some aspects of it because it goes beyond my boundaries, I will miss his intentions, and then my appreciation of his work will be less.


----------



## Wood

SONNET CLV said:


> I signed up for this Forum after reading through this thread on "musical boundaries" - aka, "comments on Cage's 4'33"". I was impressed, informed, entertained, and, at times, mortified. Overall, a great job on the thread.
> 
> This is my first post here. A few thoughts (most of which are already presented in this thread).


Welcome SONNET CLV. That is quite a first post!


----------



## Guest

Wood said:


> My difficulty is with the concept of setting boundaries.


Is anyone "setting" boundaries - as in, throwing up impermeable barriers that none can pass? I don't think so. Why must a discussion of the idea of what music is/isn't, entail the idea that those offering boundaries are 'closed' in their thinking?

I can't speak for mmsbls, but I've not signed some covenant in blood with regard to what I've given consideration to. I am not irrevocably wedded to the idea that some things are music and some aren't, as defined by my 'boundaries'. Except, of course, that I am not open to the idea that if my son declares that his silent bowl of porridge is music, then it must be.

I'm _yet _to be convinced by any of the arguments so far put forward in relation to one piece of music, but that's partly because no-one's yet put forward much of an argument in favour of its being music (though much has been stated or insinuated about those who suggest it's not music.)


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## Wood

MacLeod said:


> Is anyone "setting" boundaries - as in, throwing up impermeable barriers that none can pass? I don't think so. Why must a discussion of the idea of what music is/isn't, entail the idea that those offering boundaries are 'closed' in their thinking?
> 
> I can't speak for mmsbls, but I've not signed some covenant in blood with regard to what I've given consideration to. I am not irrevocably wedded to the idea that some things are music and some aren't, as defined by my 'boundaries'. Except, of course, that I am not open to the idea that if my son declares that his silent bowl of porridge is music, then it must be.


Sure, you have semi-boundaries that can be shifted.

My point still stands, how about rejecting the idea of boundaries?


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## science

Wood said:


> Sure, you have semi-boundaries that can be shifted.
> 
> My point still stands, how about rejecting the idea of boundaries?


Would you ask this question if the topic were trees, tables, money, or oxygen?

I don't see the appeal of denying that some categories of experience make sense.


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## Guest

Wood said:


> Sure, you have semi-boundaries that can be shifted.


Thanks. Have you also accepted (as I pointed out in a previous post) that no-one is here to diss music by considering the idea of boundaries (or, if they are, you should point them out specifically)?



Wood said:


> My point still stands, how about rejecting the idea of boundaries?


Because the point of the thread is to ask whether anyone has them and if so, what they are. That's what I've given consideration to. Not the opposite.
Because as yet, no-one, not even you in your last post about new music pushing boundaries, has yet convinced me that no boundaries is a worthy idea.


----------



## Wood

science said:


> Would you ask this question if the topic were trees, tables, money, or oxygen?
> 
> I don't see the appeal of denying that some categories of experience make sense.


No I wouldn't, but we're talking about music.

I don't deny that some categories of experience make sense.


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## science

Wood said:


> No I wouldn't, but we're talking about music.
> 
> I don't deny that some categories of experience make sense.


Ok, why not "music?"


----------



## Wood

MacLeod said:


> Thanks. Have you also accepted (as I pointed out in a previous post) that no-one is here to diss music by considering the idea of boundaries (or, if they are, you should point them out specifically)?


Not in this thread for sure. I see it a lot on this forum and in the real world where people construct rules as to what is or isn't music, and that is where I'm coming from. However, I maintain that by having the idea of boundaries, even if they are movable, you and others who have them, are potentially closing yourselves off from fully appreciating some works. It is a question of degree.



> Because the point of the thread is to ask whether anyone has them and if so, what they are. That's what I've given consideration to. Not the opposite.


Yes it is, and I don't challenge the relevancy of your responses to the OP. I however, am disagreeing with the proposition of the thread, ie I'm saying that boundaries aren't good.



> Because as yet, no-one, not even you in your last post about new music pushing boundaries, has yet convinced me that no boundaries is a worthy idea.


I don't think I have anything more to add, so I will not be able to convince you.:tiphat:


----------



## Wood

science said:


> Ok, why not "music?"


I've covered this upthread.


----------



## Jaws

MacLeod said:


> But he couldn't predict the outcome to anythng like the same degree as a conventional composer who writes out a score with explicit instructions about which instrument will play when, for how long and with which other instruments.
> 
> Am I making some mistake in using a technical word in a non-technical sense? I'm not suggesting that the entire process generates wholly random outcomes - I thought I'd already made that clear.


Only with a professional group. Many of the concerts that I have heard where music is played by amateur groups is random even thought the music is written down. In the UK there aren't any amateur groups who can actually play even the correct timing in a piece of music. So although some of the notes will be there, they won't always be in tune and the will never be in quite the right place due to lack of control of the player. I am sure that most people would not think that this was beyond their boundaries of music, yet it is random. Every performance of the same music by the same group will be random in placement of notes and differently random each time.


----------



## science

Wood said:


> I've covered this upthread.


I guess that this is the "upthread" post you mean:



Wood said:


> I have no doubt from your previous postings that you are open to all types of new music and don't see anything wrong with your intentions in this thread.
> 
> My difficulty is with the concept of setting boundaries. The whole point of new works is that they create something not previously done. If the artist goes beyond these artificial boundaries, the boundary setter will by definition be lost to the work.
> 
> My starting point is that the artist as the creator is in charge, and my role is to be as open to his work and what he is attempting as I can. Otherwise, by being closed to the work, or some aspects of it because it goes beyond my boundaries, I will miss his intentions, and then my appreciation of his work will be less.


If so, then at best we're talking about different things.

I'm not interested in legislating what counts as music and what doesn't. As far as I'm concerned, who cares? If someone wants to call his porridge "music," who cares?

But my apathy to that doesn't mean I can't try to figure out what people actually ordinarily mean when they use the word "music."


----------



## Guest

You're a brave man, Wood.

And intelligent. (A dangerous combination!)

Me, I'm just reckless. (Also dangerous, but not a combination.)

Now, it occurs to me thinking about this whole bidness, that we're not going to get anywhere with the question of whether Cage's _4'33"_ is music or not (and one of the largest and most prestigious music publishers in the world thought it was) until we can settle the question of why it is so important for some people to argue that it is not music. Aside from the continued assertions from some of those people that they don't mind if other people say that it is (and of course, they do mind, very much so! otherwise, why keep repeating the opinion that the piece is not music?), there is a very strong sense that 4'33" has to be called "notmusic." Hedging notwithstanding.

Of course, as I'm sure MacLeod is itching to type, there are some for whom it is important to argue that it is music. Think about the obvious difference between these two arguments before you type, though.

Anyway, here's the assertion: 4'33" is not music. It's something else. Philosophy.

Why is it important to assert that? It's printed on paper by a huge, famous music publisher. It has three movements, each with the same musical instruction: Tacet. It has instructions for performance. It is performed, too, by musicians, professional musicians, who also do not seem to find it difficult to consider it to be a piece of music.

In the face of all that, it continues to be important to assert that it is not music. Why? Why is that so important?

We've got a couple of answers as to why it's not music, it's got no sounds and it's got no intentional sounds. Of course, the first is just wrong. The second is the real crux. But that's the whole point of the piece, to provide a context, a frame, for sounds that are outside the control of the composer. Sounds that are outside the control of the composer have been a part of every musical performance of any music forever. In the past two hundred years of the Western tradition, however, there has been a concerted (!) effort to exclude those sounds (literally and philosophically), culminating (on the philosophical side) with the assertion by an American Record Guide reviewer that even noises external to a recording, like your spouse running the vacuum cleaner while you're listening to Brahms, have to be considered as distortion.

Cage's philosophical contribution, which he contributed in words, which is the typical way to convey philosophy, was to propose that we accept those sounds, that we attend to those sounds, that we value those sounds. They're inevitable, no matter what we think about them. Might as well enjoy 'em, eh? His musical contribution--his practical demonstration of that idea--was a musical composition entitled 4'33", which has a score (has had a couple of different scores) consisting of musical instructions to a performer.

Intention seems to be the crux for the posters here so far. No intention, no music. That is, no composer intention. Listener intention doesn't count. So intention isn't really the crux, separating people into creators and noncreators is the crux. And the noncreators don't count. Except for expressing opinions, which everyone's entitled to (even me?) Dividing the world into creators and noncreators seems a rather odd way of going about your business, to me. Why is that so important?

And we still don't seem able to articulate why it is so important to assert that Cage's landmark composition _4'33"_ is not a piece of music. (We don't seem able to understand that saying we don't mind if other people do is completely subverted by our continued persistence in asserting that it's not.)

That's where we're stuck, really. First, we will have to figure out why it's so important to say that _4'33"_ is not music. Only once that is done (and it will never be done, I suspect), will we be able to go on to the other thing, which is whether or not it is a piece of music. Probably once the first thing is done, however, the need to do the second thing will disappear.

I live, as you see, in constant hope.


----------



## Guest

Conversely, why is it so important to say that 4'33" _is _music? It isn't, is it? Any more than it's _important _to say it isn't.

None of what I type here is _important_, but there are at least two people here for whom it has been of interest. You who think that this is part of a plot on the part of mmsbls and myself to subvert the legitimacy of ...whatever music you would object to us subverting the legitimacy of - you are mistaken, I think. Therefore, mmsbls and I can surely be left in peace to twiddle away with our unacceptably conventional and closed-minded thinking about boundaries without worrying anyone else.


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## science

I don't see any reason to get this excited. If I'm trying to listen to Brahms when my wife starts vacuuming, that's not what I'm trying to listen to. 

If I'm trying to listen to my wife vacuuming and Brahms, that's fine - I'll be disappointed if she turns off the vacuum cleaner. 

The intentionality thing is interesting. Celibidache had some nice insight into that. But for me, the more interesting boundaries of "music" are birdsong, the "songs" of whales, recordings of rain or waves or whatever, and so on.


----------



## Guest

Wood said:


> Not in this thread for sure.


Thank you.



Wood said:


> I see it a lot on this forum and in the real world


Let's just stick to what is happening in this thread.



Wood said:


> Yes it is, and I don't challenge the relevancy of your responses to the OP.


Thank you.


----------



## Guest

If you cannot deal with the issues at hand, you make up other issues and deal with them.

One of the oldest tricks in the book. Still working its magic.


----------



## Wood

science said:


> I guess that this is the "upthread" post you mean:
> 
> If so, then at best we're talking about different things.
> 
> I'm not interested in legislating what counts as music and what doesn't. As far as I'm concerned, who cares? If someone wants to call his porridge "music," who cares?
> 
> But my apathy to that doesn't mean I can't try to figure out what people actually ordinarily mean when they use the word "music."


What do you expect to gain by learning what other people's definition of music is?


----------



## Wood

some guy said:


> You're a brave man, Wood.


Brave, or stupid. 

I'm getting a lot of negative waves down the ether these days.


----------



## Wood

MacLeod said:


> Let's just stick to what is happening in this thread.


No chance. 

Now, I've answered your questions to your satisfaction, so please answer one of mine:

What do you hope to gain by a knowledge of people's boundaries of what is music?

Also, I note that you evaded someguy's question, so please answer this:

Why do you wish to determine whether 4'33 is music or non-music? What do you hope to achieve from this?


----------



## science

Wood said:


> What do you expect to gain by learning what other people's definition of music is?


It was just another topic of conversation.


----------



## science

some guy said:


> If you cannot deal with the issues at hand, you make up other issues and deal with them.
> 
> One of the oldest tricks in the book. Still working its magic.


In the third post of this thread I explained why I consider Cage's 4'33 to be a work of music. So I wasn't avoiding anything.

Pleasant day to you, my darling friend.


----------



## Guest

Wood said:


> No chance.
> 
> Now, I've answered your questions to your satisfaction, so please answer one of mine:
> 
> What do you hope to gain by a knowledge of people's boundaries of what is music?
> 
> Also, I note that you evaded someguy's question, so please answer this:
> 
> Why do you wish to determine whether 4'33 is music or non-music? What do you hope to achieve from this?


To your first question, I can only say I don't know specifically. Perhaps the pleasure of an exchange of ideas and information - the usual reason for posting in an internet forum; when I started out replying to the OP, I didn't know what might come of entering into the discussion, but I suppose I expected a few other people to offer their ideas of boundaries and in doing so, to help me test mine.

To your second, I would say that I think I've already answered it (for example, #126*) but you'd probably have to track through all my posts on the subject to get a clear view. For example, in my earliest post, I made clear that my three conditions applied only insofar as I was willing to listen to 'music' more than once. That is, I was using a personal definition for my personal listening, not for defining 'music' for anyone else or 'objectively'.

I will elaborate a little further, just to be clear again. I have listened to 4'33". I have no wish to listen to it again. Whether it is music or not, it also failed my third condition, which was something about it holding my interest. There may be a value in listening to 4'33" more than once, or a different performance, but I'm not sure what it is.

[edit]* also #113 and 120


----------



## Stavrogin

I keep reading this exhilarating logical fallacy again and again - that trying to find definitions of concepts related to art somehow would imply to be close-minded or not able to fully appreciate works; that setting definitions would imply diminishing some things or even refusing others. Damn. Why? Frankly, it's beyond me.


----------



## Blancrocher

Stavrogin said:


> I keep reading this exhilarating logical fallacy again and again - that trying to find definitions of concepts related to art somehow would imply to be close-minded or not able to fully appreciate works; that setting definitions would imply diminishing some things or even refusing others. Damn. Why? Frankly, it's beyond me.


These "modern music" threads always get personal, I'm afraid.


----------



## Wood

MacLeod said:


> To your first question, I can only say I don't know specifically. Perhaps the pleasure of an exchange of ideas and information - the usual reason for posting in an internet forum; when I started out replying to the OP, I didn't know what might come of entering into the discussion, but I suppose I expected a few other people to offer their ideas of boundaries and in doing so, to help me test mine.


Fine. I hope that I have in some way made your boundaries weaker, rather than test them.



> To your second, I would say that I think I've already answered it (for example, #126*) but you'd probably have to track through all my posts on the subject to get a clear view. For example, in my earliest post, I made clear that my three conditions applied only insofar as I was willing to listen to 'music' more than once. That is, I was using a personal definition for my personal listening, not for defining 'music' for anyone else or 'objectively'.
> 
> I will elaborate a little further, just to be clear again. I have listened to 4'33". I have no wish to listen to it again. Whether it is music or not, it also failed my third condition, which was something about it holding my interest. There may be a value in listening to 4'33" more than once, or a different performance, but I'm not sure what it is.
> 
> [edit]* also #113 and 120


What I get from your three conditions is a definition of music that you like. So you appear to be defining your boundaries in terms of music you like / don't like. I don't know if you actually think this, but following your posts I am reading that you don't like 4'33, _ipso facto_ it is not music.

So why do you need to say if it is music / not music? Because by saying it is not music, you are saying you don't like it. So once again this thread comes round to music we like / dislike, which goes back to my very first post on this.

Post #36:



> The boundaries of music are set according to the definition of music.
> 
> There is no single definition of music.
> 
> Therefore this thread is for discussing the definition of music, unfortunately in spite of your intentions for something more specific.
> 
> MacLeod defines music as that which he enjoys, and sets the boundaries accordingly. Millions defines music as all sounds, setting his boundaries there.
> 
> This has drifted into another pseudo-intellectual debate about which music one likes / doesn't like. Yet again. No matter.


This post is as apposite now as it was way back on page 3!


----------



## Wood

Stavrogin said:


> I keep reading this exhilarating logical fallacy again and again - that trying to find definitions of concepts related to art somehow would imply to be close-minded or not able to fully appreciate works; that setting definitions would imply diminishing some things or even refusing others. Damn. Why? Frankly, it's beyond me.


Where are you finding these logical fallacies Stav? Can you provide examples?


----------



## Guest

Wood said:


> What I get from your three conditions is a definition of music that you like. So you appear to be defining your boundaries in terms of music you like / don't like. I don't know if you actually think this, but following your posts I am reading that you don't like 4'33, _ipso facto_ it is not music.
> 
> So why do you need to say if it is music / not music? Because *by saying it is not music, you are saying you don't like it. So once again this thread* comes round to music we like / dislike, which goes back to my very first post on this.


I'll refer you again to what I said on page 1, post #2. What I said there is not a definition of 'this thread'. It was a personal response to the OP. What's wrong with making a personal response?


----------



## Wood

MacLeod said:


> I'll refer you again to what I said on page 1, post #2. What I said there is not a definition of 'this thread'. It was a personal response to the OP. What's wrong with making a personal response?


I see what someguy means about your debating tactics! I'm outta here.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend everyone (who have read this far)!


----------



## Guest

Wood said:


> I see what someguy means about your debating tactics! I'm outta here.


Well, if anyone wants to take me to one side and help me resolve the issues with my 'debating tactics', I'm willing. Provided, of course, that I'll be allowed to comment on other people's too, though I gather it's contrary to the Ts and Cs of the forum.

In the meantime, I'll accept your post #36 (a reference you added while I was replying to you), but add that whilst I'm sure mmsbls didn't set out to make it 'pseudo-intellectual', I'm sure he did set out to make it nothing more or less than a conversation about personal views.


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## millionrainbows

Celloman said:


> What is music? It all depends on your definition.


Music is whatever the composer says it is.


----------



## millionrainbows

Wood said:


> I see what someguy means about your debating tactics! I'm outta here.
> 
> Enjoy the rest of your weekend everyone (who have read this far)!


A noble effort, Wood, but as you can see, ultimately a waste of time.


----------



## millionrainbows

MacLeod said:


> ...whilst I'm sure mmsbls didn't set out to make it 'pseudo-intellectual', I'm sure he did set out to make it nothing more or less than a conversation about *personal views*.


*Personal views *whose intent is to invalidate modern composers and their works.

If we did the same thing in regards to people, we would be saying "Not only do I not like this group of people, but I question whether they are people at all; they are not people, they are sub-human."

Since music is a human expression, and is an extension of our experience as people, then to say* "4'33" is not music"* is *"musical racism," *a way of de-humanizing music and its creators, and the group of listeners here who value it.

I am personally offended by the blatant insensitivity and aggression in this thread.


----------



## Blancrocher

Wood said:


> Where are you finding these logical fallacies Stav? Can you provide examples?


I'm sure it's impossible, myself.


----------



## millionrainbows

If they just want to destroy stuff, then they'd like punk rock.


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## mmsbls

Wood said:


> I have no doubt from your previous postings that you are open to all types of new music and don't see anything wrong with your intentions in this thread.
> 
> My difficulty is with the concept of setting boundaries. The whole point of new works is that they create something not previously done. If the artist goes beyond these artificial boundaries, the boundary setter will by definition be lost to the work.
> 
> My starting point is that the artist as the creator is in charge, and my role is to be as open to his work and what he is attempting as I can. Otherwise, by being closed to the work, or some aspects of it because it goes beyond my boundaries, I will miss his intentions, and then my appreciation of his work will be less.


Thank you for this post. I think I misunderstood how some others were responding to my ideas and specifically interpreting the concept of boundary. I agree completely with what you've said. Without being open to new works, there's a high possibility of not engaging or properly hearing the work. If someone starts off thinking, "This is not what I like or want", they'll probably end up being correct. If I understand now, the word boundary was interpreted as the boundary between what is liked and disliked or possibly what one will be open to or not.

I was trying to use the term differently. My sense of the term was similar to asking where do you draw the boundary of a house. Is the outside deck included? Are outside flower pots on sills included? I doubt anyone would think differently about a flower pot depending on their answer to the question.

To me the question was more philosophical and not necessarily relevant to one's appreciation of the work itself.


----------



## PetrB

Exactly! 

In reading a good number of posts in this thread, I think it safe to say there are almost no major boundaries of "what music is," and only a few differences in opinion on that, more via personal preferences and taste than for any reason which could be argued as an absolute truth.

We see here nearly as many lines drawn in many different places as there are listeners -- those lines around and about what is accepted either as music, or on music which is found "acceptable"


----------



## millionrainbows

mmsbls said:


> ...I think I misunderstood how some others were responding to my ideas and specifically interpreting the concept of boundary.......If I understand now, the word boundary was interpreted as the boundary between what is liked and disliked or possibly what one will be open to or not...I was trying to use the term differently...To me the question was more philosophical and not necessarily relevant to one's appreciation of the work itself.


That's not the impression I got from the OP, which I felt exhibited clear and specific bias.

What's the difference between "disliking a work," "not being open to a work," and declaring that it is "not music?" *I see none,* regardless of the supposed 'objectivity' of the inquiry.

You can defend your position by saying you are being "objective" and "dispassionate," but your view opposes and disregards the intent of the composer, so it is negating the artist and his work.

The work 4'33" is already a part of music history, has been published and performed countless times, and is generally recognized as a valid musical statement.



mmsbls said:


> There have been threads on TC (asking), "What is music?" In this thread I'm asking for something slightly different - *statements of what music is not. *


This is basically the same question posed in an opposite way, *in order to exclude *certain works, which you go on to be very specific about:



mmsbls said:


> I'd like people to either *select an actual work* or describe a theoretical work and explain why they think that work *is not music...** I believe Cage's 4'33" is not music....*I do not think the work is *crap, garbage, useless, or many other potential derogatory terms*. I just think 4'33" is* philosophy rather than music.*


But the reasons you use to support this statement, such as "the work is just philosophy" are essentially flawed, because 4'33" consists of sounds, and is not 'silent' or *merely* philosophical in nature or intent; *it is sound,* as well as being a philosophical statement.

The work is about listening to sounds around us, and hearing them in a meaningful way, by placing this experience in the context of a concert hall where music is performed.


----------



## PetrB

millionrainbows said:


> That's not the impression I got from the OP, which I felt exhibited clear and specific bias.
> 
> This is basically the same question posed in an opposite way, in order to exclude certain works, which you go on to be very specific about:


But that is exactly what was announced: what is beyond the personal boundaries of whomever responds. It seemed perfectly plain to me.

I agree that the yet again mention of a piece named so often it is to a point a signature of an endemic of the most cliche expectations was cited (4'33''), and I always find that regrettable.

Other than that, I think people said what their individual limits are, and the expressions like 'random notes of 12 tone music' or 4'33'' being mentioned in the negative, or any and all like, should not by now raise anyone's eyebrows at all, let alone spark genuine ire.

The OP could have been couched in terms of "what are your personal limitations," or "what are your personal shortcomings when it comes to the limits of what you listen to," which I often enough think when reading some of these, but that too, is not positive, nor is it a constructive approach to solicit peoples responses.

My preference, or aesthetic sense, for example does not 'recognize' Tchaikovsky or Rachmaninoff 'as music' (to put it in that same crude mode of expression I've always found more than a little odd But, I am not naive enough to declare what I know to be music as not (which does happen in a thread like this, including the ever-debatable 4'33'') but to not expect other like statements, wherever a person has drawn their line, is I think a hair naive.


----------



## millionrainbows

PetrB said:


> But that is exactly what was announced: what is beyond the personal boundaries of whomever responds. It seemed perfectly plain to me....people (and) what their individual limits are, should not by now raise anyone's eyebrows at all, let alone spark genuine ire...to not expect other such statements, wherever a person has drawn their line, is I think a hair naïve...


What would be truly naïve would be to pretend that this thread premise is not just another Cage-bashing opportunity, in order to provoke and create conflict.

I'm not interested in how "the readers of TC define their boundaries," when the art in question is doing the same thing, but under the auspices of a published, performed work by a historically recognized and important major American composer like John Cage.

Give it up, it's a losing proposition. And to paraphrase uncle Milty, "Who Cares If You Think It's Music?"

Not me.


----------



## mmsbls

Wood said:


> Why do you wish to determine whether 4'33 is music or non-music? What do you hope to achieve from this?





Wood said:


> Fine. I hope that I have in some way made your boundaries weaker, rather than test them.


Maybe this sounds strange, but I don't wish to determine whether 4'33" is music or not. I wanted others' ideas on musical boundaries. 4'33" was used as a concrete example to perhaps aide the discussion. But whether 4'33" itself is music is not at all important to me. Exactly what is music is not at all important to me. I'm greatly interested in ideas and love to think about things. I wanted a discussion of ideas.

To the second quote above, I like to discuss ideas because I like to understand things better. Discussions can help one better understand one's position and believe it more strongly. It can also let one better understand others' positions. *OR* it can even lead to someone changing her mind because she recognizes problems with her beliefs or strengths of others' beliefs. My view of music requiring the creators' intentions is not strongly held, and in fact, it is somewhat weaker due to the discussion here.

Incidentally, if I were in a conversation with someone who argued that 4'33" is not music, I would probably argue that it was music unless I felt they were making a philosophical argument about music's definitions. If I felt they just thought it was stupid, useless, bizarre, etc., I would argue strongly that it is not and that there were good reasons to believe it is music.


----------



## EdwardBast

I wonder why people insist on the peculiar notion that complex, multifaceted concepts, like music, should have definitions. Wasn't it Wittgenstein who argued that there is no feature or element shared by all things comprised by the word "game?" He argued that things called games are tied together in a circle of family resemblances to other things called games, each sharing elements with others adjacent or nearby in the circle but often sharing absolutely nothing with those on the other side. (Obviously, I am using a spacial metaphor, and the terms "adjacent" and "other side" are terms in this extended metaphor.) Music is the same way. There is no single distinguishing element that all instances of the term music share. One might argue that all instances of music include sound, but this is not a distinguishing element since all sorts of natural and mechanical phenomena are also characterized by the production of sound. 

Summing up: I don't expect terms like "music" to have definitions in any sense usually applied to the term definition.


----------



## Marschallin Blair

Blancrocher said:


> These "modern music" threads always get personal, I'm afraid.


The 'personal' doesn't exist. It's a "social construct"-- that is to say of course, unless the post-modernist is talking about _themself_; then of course everyone's obliged to listen.


----------



## PetrB

millionrainbows said:


> What would be truly naïve would be to pretend that this thread premise is not just another Cage-bashing opportunity, in order to provoke and create conflict.
> 
> I'm not interested in how "the readers of TC define their boundaries," when the art in question is doing the same thing, but under the auspices of a published, performed work by a historically recognized and important major American composer like John Cage.
> Give it up, it's a losing proposition. And to paraphrase uncle Milty, "Who Cares If You Think It's Music?"
> 
> Not me.


_It became a Cage bashing session through quite a number of entries_... ergo, that is why I find the mention of 4'33'' in this sort of thread a grave misfortune: 
Whether it is or is not music is known to not be a settled issue for more than a few listeners.
Any discussion on it usually goes nowhere.

There is only one 4'33'' all of four minutes and thirty-three seconds, for goodness' sake. That people seem completely fixated and hung up on it is to me just astounding. It is the perfect red herring item to bring up in order to derail any worthwhile discussion about 'what is music,' and it instantly occludes peoples honest thoughts about what, to them, is or is not music.

Yes, the mention of it in the OP was more than unfortunate, but I do not think the rest of the OP was a calculated macro construct designed solely in order to slip in a bash at 4'33.'' I think to think that is getting near to being conspiracy theory paranoid.

We hear and read it all the time, "There is no classical music after 1900," "serial music (they mean atonal) is random noise, the players could have played anything at random and it would have sounded the same / as 'good.'"

So people have limitations. 
Big Whup, _no surprise._


----------



## PetrB

Marschallin Blair said:


> The 'personal' doesn't exist. It's a "social construct"-- that is to say of course, unless the post-modernist is talking about _themself_; then of course everyone's obliged to listen.


Like a thread on Bach or Rachmaninoff does not instantly turn and remain personal? LOL.


----------



## Marschallin Blair

PetrB said:


> Like a thread on Bach or Rachmaninoff does not instantly turn and remain personal? LOL.


Oh sure.

Everything's personal. How could it _not_ be?

Do people perceive and process music by their own ears and brain?-- or by some means of non-existence?-- like say, a "social brain," as if that, bogus instantiation had any meaning.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reification_(fallacy)


----------



## Blancrocher

EdwardBast said:


> Wasn't it Wittgenstein who argued that there is no feature or element shared by all things comprised by the word "game?"


Wittgenstein could be useful here, since it would be nice to think we're all playing a friendly language game together, but I'm afraid that we're actually involved in the more painful throws of a Hegelian dialectic. We've seen negations and negations-of-negations in the arduous process of uncovering a process-oriented definition of "music"--a synthesis is just around the corner, I'm sure.


----------



## samurai

Blancrocher said:


> Wittgenstein could be useful here, since it would be nice to think we're all playing a friendly language game together, but I'm afraid that we're actually involved in the more painful throws of a Hegelian dialectic. We've seen negations and negations-of-negations in the arduous process of uncovering a process-oriented definition of "music"--a synthesis is just around the corner, I'm sure.


We can always hope one is coming, anyway. :angel: I guess hope springs eternal. :cheers:


----------



## mmsbls

millionrainbows said:


> That's not the impression I got from the OP, which I felt exhibited clear and specific bias.


I believe the above is true. You misunderstood my intent. After I tried to correct your beliefs about my intents, I'm not sure why you continue to believe you know my intents better than I do (unless you think I'm lying).



millionrainbows said:


> What's the difference between "disliking a work," "not being open to a work," and declaring that it is "not music?" *I see none,* regardless of the supposed 'objectivity' of the inquiry.


What's the difference between declaring "chess is not a sport" and disliking chess? I don't think chess is a sport (and incidentally the largest sports magazine in the US believes it is), and I love chess. There's an enormous difference between the two.



millionrainbows said:


> You can defend your position by saying you are being "objective" and "dispassionate," but your view opposes and disregards the intent of the composer, so it is negating the artist and his work.


How am I disregarding Cage's intent? How is it even possible to negate a person or their work? I have no idea what you mean here.



millionrainbows said:


> The work 4'33" is already a part of music history, has been published and performed countless times, and is generally recognized as a valid musical statement.


That's sort of true. As ArtMusic pointed out, I suspect the vast majority of people do not recognize 4'33" as music. BUT...I agree that the views of those you reference are much more relevant and important in considering 4'33". I am perfectly happy to accept those views, and I understand I am an outlier within that group.



millionrainbows said:


> But the reasons you use to support this statement, such as "the work is just philosophy" are essentially flawed, because 4'33" consists of sounds, and is not 'silent' or *merely* philosophical in nature or intent; *it is sound,* as well as being a philosophical statement.


So you believe my arguments are flawed. They certainly could be. That's one of the reasons for posting this thread (as I mentioned in a post above). I want to hear others' views to better understand my own.


----------



## KenOC

In the interests of being impersonal: An article on dissonance from yesterday's NYT titled "The Art of Setting the Senses on Edge."

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/01/arts/music/musical-dissonance-from-schumann-to-sondheim.html


----------



## Guest

science said:


> In the third post of this thread I explained why I consider Cage's 4'33 to be a work of music. So I wasn't avoiding anything.
> 
> Pleasant day to you, my darling friend.


I was neither talking to nor referring to you. I have agreed with everything you've said on this particular thread.


----------



## Mahlerian

KenOC said:


> In the interests of being impersonal: An article on dissonance from yesterday's NYT titled "The Art of Setting the Senses on Edge."
> 
> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/01/arts/music/musical-dissonance-from-schumann-to-sondheim.html


I'm a little disappointed he doesn't mention Debussy, whose music is filled with non-resolving dissonances of the kind he attributes to jazz and Gershwin, but hey, a critic tends towards his or her favorites.


----------



## Guest

He probably knows better. But maybe not.

He does say this: "Schoenberg’s atonal musical style is by definition full of dissonance."

But if dissonance is defined strictly, as an inevitable and necessary component of tonal music--as the thing that makes tonal music sound like it's "going" somewhere, then Schoenberg's "atonal" music is by definition completely devoid of dissonance. It may indeed contain things that some people will describe as discordant, but dissonant? Not a bit of it. Dissonant, as a musical term, describes the fundamental attribute of common practice tonality. Outside of that context, it either means nothing, or it means nothing more than discordant.


----------



## Marschallin Blair

> Originally Posted by EdwardBast
> Wasn't it Wittgenstein who argued that there is no feature or element shared by all things comprised by the word "game?"
> 
> Blancrocher: Wittgenstein could be useful here, since it would be nice to think we're all playing a friendly language game together, but I'm afraid that we're actually involved in the more painful throws of a Hegelian dialectic. We've seen negations and negations-of-negations in the arduous process of uncovering a process-oriented definition of "music"--a synthesis is just around the corner, I'm sure.


I'd argue that Wittgenstein, though certainly clever, was fundamentally wrong. If a definition is too narrow, then it needs to be reformulated to encompass a wider range of attributes for a concept. Basic stuff really. Elementary Aristotle. Genus and species. Seventh-grade biology.

I think Hegel, to the extent that I imagine that I understand him, is even more correct than Wittgenstein with his unending dialectic of 'thesis,' 'antithesis,' and 'synthesis'-- which is just saying that truer propositions are arrived at through the process of trial and error; blind variation and selective retention; conjecture and refutation.


----------



## Blake

some guy said:


> He probably knows better. But maybe not.
> 
> He does say this: "Schoenberg's atonal musical style is by definition full of dissonance."
> 
> But if dissonance is defined strictly, as an inevitable and necessary component of tonal music--as the thing that makes tonal music sound like it's "going" somewhere, then Schoenberg's "atonal" music is by definition completely devoid of dissonance. It may indeed contain things that some people will describe as discordant, but dissonant? Not a bit of it. Dissonant, as a musical term, describes the fundamental attribute of common practice tonality. Outside of that context, it either means nothing, or it means nothing more than discordant.


Ah, good point. We're judging one structure from the terms originally delegated to another. I really think you're hitting on a key issue in the lack of productive communication of 'tonal' and 'atonal' around here. So many don't want to get out of this traditional 'tonal' thought, yet they wonder why nothing new makes sense. You have to let go first.


----------



## mmsbls

millionrainbows said:


> *Personal views *whose intent is to invalidate modern composers and their works.


Do you honestly believe I am intent on invalidating modern composers and their works? Honestly? Do you ever read my posts? I registered at TC with the publicly stated intent to "learn to appreciate modern music". Over the time I've been here I have repeatedly supported, sought out, and defended modern/contemporary composers and works. I've listened to modern/contemporary music maybe 80-90% of the time in the past year or more. On this thread alone I have made several very positive comments about Cage. You think my belief that 4'33" is not music is negative, but I think the work is interesting, courageous, and important. Hardly invalidating Cage or 4'33".

I'm sorry you feel as you do. I do believe your views stem from misunderstanding my views. I understand how some TC members feel strongly about modern/contemporary music and wish to defend it strongly when another member attacks it. Some members do degrade new music and dismiss it as crap. I wish they wouldn't. To be frank, I'm one of your allies. I actually defend and promote modern/contemporary music (but slightly differently than you do). I'm not sure it makes sense to attack an ally.

Certainly argue that my views are mistaken (they could well be). But accusing me of racism, Cage bashing, aggressive behavior, invalidating modern music, and dehumanizing other TC members seems possibly a bit much. Wouldn't you agree?


----------



## PetrB

Blancrocher said:


> Wittgenstein could be useful here, since it would be nice to think we're all playing a friendly language game together, but I'm afraid that we're actually involved in the more painful throws of a Hegelian dialectic. We've seen negations and negations-of-negations in the arduous process of uncovering a process-oriented definition of "music"--a synthesis is just around the corner, I'm sure.


I doubt it. I think this is more that same sort of situation of trying to get two oboists to agree on tuning on pitch, i.e. the only way you will ever find agreement there is to shoot one of those two oboists, aiming well to be certain the one you shoot is dead


----------



## mmsbls

PetrB said:


> I doubt it. I think this is more that same sort of situation of trying to get two oboists to agree on tuning on pitch, i.e. the only way you will ever find agreement there is to shoot one of those two oboists, aiming well to be certain the one you shoot is dead


Yes, quite agree. As I said, it's much easier to look at everyone's boundaries than to converge on a definition of music.


----------



## Blancrocher

PetrB said:


> I doubt it. I think this is more that same sort of situation of trying to get two oboists to agree on tuning on pitch, i.e. the only way you will ever find agreement there is to shoot one of those two oboists, aiming well to be certain the one you shoot is dead


It's a shame we're not having this conversation in the Community Forum--over there it's the violists who get the worst of it.


----------



## Stavrogin

Wood said:


> Where are you finding these logical fallacies Stav? Can you provide examples?


Sure. Here are some:



millionrainbows said:


> I'm really more interested in approaching and discussing different kinds of art and music, rather than arguing with others who have withdrawn from engagement with the art in question, who choose to define it or put boundaries around it as a way of judging it, rejecting it, or degrading it.





millionrainbows said:


> The critics of 'music which lies on the extreme boundaries' are being inflexible in their subjectivity. This attitude of 'boundaries' is not a true engagement with the work, because they have pre-defined it.





millionrainbows said:


> I don't think this idea of 'boundaries' results from any sincere effort to engage with music; these boundaries are simply rejections of art based on subjective bias and mindset.





Wood said:


> Sure, and my feeling, belief and opinion is that these boundaries are arbitrary, and of no real meaning, other than to give individuals the opportunity to diss works like 4'33.


----------



## science

Would anyone's take on this be different if the question asked about the boundaries of "classical" music?


----------



## mmsbls

I think my boundaries for music are rather grey and nebulous, but my boundaries for classical music are probably more so.


----------



## scratchgolf

mmsbls. I, for one, understood the intent of the OP. The absurd turn this thread has taken seems to be a recent trend in the "Classical Music Discussion" section. There are quite a few posters who seem to be avoiding this section completely now. Some I thought no longer used this site until recently seeing their posts in less argumentative sections. For the record, I think you're one of the more level-headed people here and your use of tact is impressive. Tact is not always my strong suit so I avoid or withdraw from certain discussions. I've seen multiple occasions where you've engaged the "Modern, Atonal, Avant-Garde, Modern music sucks" crowd with reason and accounts of personal experience. Where others have chosen to use their knowledge and experience to condescend and insult, you've always used phrases like, "A few years ago I felt the same way but......" People like you and Science, among others, are the reason I still even post here. BTW, I went back and read post #195. Read it again, and again, and again. Even came back later in the day and read it a few more times, just to make sure I wasn't imagining things. I've already had one post deleted this week so I'll simply say.......nothing further.


----------



## Morimur

The only boundary is one's imagination.


----------



## Blake

Lope de Aguirre said:


> The only boundary is one's imagination.


A romantic view, but there's also the boundaries of sensory perceptions, intellect, emotional capacity, etc...


----------



## PetrB

some guy said:


> He probably knows better. But maybe not.
> 
> He does say this: "Schoenberg's atonal musical style is by definition full of dissonance."
> 
> But if dissonance is defined strictly, as an inevitable and necessary component of tonal music--as the thing that makes tonal music sound like it's "going" somewhere, then Schoenberg's "atonal" music is by definition completely devoid of dissonance. It may indeed contain things that some people will describe as discordant, but dissonant? Not a bit of it. Dissonant, as a musical term, describes the fundamental attribute of common practice tonality. Outside of that context, it either means nothing, or it means nothing more than discordant.


A-yep! The music of Rameau is far more dissonant than Schoenberg. Many will not like to even think about that, but there 'tis.


----------



## PetrB

Blancrocher said:


> It's a shame we're not having this conversation in the Community Forum--over there it's the violists who get the worst of it.


b...b....b..but Violists breath normally, where everyone knows because of the very tiny aperture of the oboe reed, combined with oboists holding their breath like pearl divers who use no external equipment, that this causes brain damage, ergo, making oboe players infamously more than a titch eccentric -- and that leaning more towards "crazy."


----------



## arpeggio

*Bassoon vs. Oboe*



PetrB said:


> b...b....b..but Violists breath normally, where everyone knows because of the very tiny aperture of the oboe reed, combined with oboists holding their breath like pearl divers who use no external equipment, that this causes brain damage, ergo, making oboe players infamously more than a titch eccentric -- and that leaning more towards "crazy."


I resent the idea that an oboist is crazier than a bassoonist.

Although the bassoon reed is larger, the aperture for bassoon is about the same size as an oboe. And our instrument is eight feet long while the oboe is just a mere two feet.

Don't my goofy posts proof enough.

By the way. Who are you people and why am I talking to you? :devil:


----------



## Guest

millionrainbows said:


> *Personal views *whose intent is to invalidate modern composers and their works.
> 
> If we did the same thing in regards to people, we would be saying "Not only do I not like this group of people, but I question whether they are people at all; they are not people, they are sub-human."
> 
> Since music is a human expression, and is an extension of our experience as people, then to say* "4'33" is not music"* is *"musical racism," *a way of de-humanizing music and its creators, and the group of listeners here who value it.
> 
> I am personally offended by the blatant insensitivity and aggression in this thread.


And I am personally offended by the ludicrous and insulting leap of illogic in your post. Now what? Now we've both offended and been offended, shall we move on?


----------



## Guest

some guy said:


> If you cannot deal with the issues at hand, you make up other issues and deal with them.
> 
> One of the oldest tricks in the book. Still working its magic.


Not directing your criticisms at a named poster...is that one of the oldest internet tricks in the book too?

Someguy, if you are referring to me, perhaps you'd like to point out what it is I'm not dealing with and I'll try and deal with it. In return, perhaps you'd like to respond to the question I asked a while back.



> I'd say you would prefer it if there _were exchange, challenge, examination, counter etc etc. So, would you like to offer a defence of your opinion, that is, that LvB's 9th is "no more patently music than..." etc?_


Or even elaborate on the differences you've noticed in lousy and good performances of...no, perhaps not, we've heard enough about _that _particular piece.


----------



## Woodduck

Where are the boundaries of art? Here is a thought experiment. 

Envision a world in which: 1) Every person calling himself a "composer" offers as "music" only a person walking onto an empty stage, saying "listen" to an audience, walking off, and returning later to say "the concert is over." 2) Every person calling himself a "visual artist" offers as "visual art" only a person walking into a bare room where people are milling about, waving his arm in a long arc, saying "look," walking out, and returning later to say "the exhibition is over." 3) Every person calling himself a "dancer" or "actor" merely walks out onto an empty stage, stands rigid for a few minutes, says "the dance (or the play) is over," and walks off. 4) Every person calling himself a novelist or poet publishes only bound sheaves of empty pages. In this imaginary world, there have never been any other activities or objects which anyone has ever described as "art." There are numerous people engaged in the actions described above, and there are numerous critics, scholars, professors, philosophers, and other appreciators of the arts writing in numerous journals, periodicals, pamphlets, concert programs and internet forums, offering extensive analyses and reviews explaining the meaning of these artistic events and the intentions of their creators. The public which attends these events reads with eager interest the writings of these commentators in order to understand the meaning of what they have experienced, and in order to prepare themselves to appreciate more deeply, and participate more fully in, the next performance they attend.

I ask: Does "art," in any meaningful, valuable, or necessary sense, exist in this imaginary world in which "music" consists only of people listening to random, uncreated, unorganized sounds for a designated period of time; "visual art" consists of people looking at random, uncreated, unorganized visual stimuli in the environment because they have been invited to do so; "theater art" consists of people observing the random blinking, twitching, and involuntary breathing of people onstage making no voluntary movements; and "literature" consists of people gazing at sequences of bound, blank pages while thinking whatever random thoughts the activity provokes in their minds? Would any such concept as "art" be needed in this imaginary world? Would such a concept ever arise? What human need would be served by the activities described above? And if such a need existed, would a special category such as "art" be needed, or ever be invented, to describe the activities people engaged in to meet that need?

Returning to the world in which we actually live, I would ask exactly the same questions, all of which arise from one fundamental question: What is art for? Why does it exist? What human need(s) does it serve? And if we are going to ask what is art and what is not, should we not keep that in mind as the first and most basic question to be asked?

Speaking for myself, I can think of an infinite number of ways to spend 4'33" of my time which meet my needs as a human being. Listening to the noises in my environment may be one of them, but I don't need someone calling himself a "composer" to bring me out of the house, make me find parking downtown, and take my money at the door, to induce me to do it and convince me "philosophically" that the experience is worth my while. Indeed, if an experience of meditative attention is what I want, I'd infinitely prefer stretching out on a grassy hillside under the summer sun and listening to birds singing and wind in the trees. What John Cage thinks or intends, or what he wants me to think, perceive or attend to, or what he does with the rest of his time to justify the title of "composer" (and of course he does compose music), is of absolutely no interest to me in the context of that 4'33" slice out of my life, which, if I have come to it unawares (which is impossible now that we're all in on the joke), I will regard as nothing more than an idiotic and offensive waste of time.

I hasten to add that I speak only for myself, for fear of looking up and find my home surrounded by raised pitchforks. But then, perhaps I could call the neighbors to look out their windows and congratulate myself on having created a work of "performance art."


----------



## shangoyal

Woodduck said:


> Where are the boundaries of art? Here is a thought experiment.
> 
> Envision a world in which: 1) Every person calling himself a "composer" offers as "music" only a person walking onto an empty stage, saying "listen" to an audience, walking off, and returning later to say "the concert is over." 2) Every person calling himself a "visual artist" offers as "visual art" only a person walking into a bare room where people are milling about, waving his arm in a long arc, saying "look," walking out, and returning later to say "the exhibition is over." 3) Every person calling himself a "dancer" or "actor" merely walks out onto an empty stage, stands rigid for a few minutes, says "the dance (or the play) is over," and walks off. 4) Every person calling himself a novelist or poet publishes only bound sheaves of empty pages. In this imaginary world, there have never been any other activities or objects which anyone has ever described as "art." There are numerous people engaged in the actions described above, and there are numerous critics, scholars, professors, philosophers, and other appreciators of the arts writing in numerous journals, periodicals, pamphlets, concert programs and internet forums, offering extensive analyses and reviews explaining the meaning of these artistic events and the intentions of their creators. The public which attends these events reads with eager interest the writings of these commentators in order to understand the meaning of what they have experienced, and in order to prepare themselves to appreciate more deeply, and participate more fully in, the next performance they attend.
> 
> I ask: Does "art," in any meaningful, valuable, or necessary sense, exist in this imaginary world in which "music" consists only of people listening to random, uncreated, unorganized sounds for a designated period of time; "visual art" consists of people looking at random, uncreated, unorganized visual stimuli in the environment because they have been invited to do so; "theater art" consists of people observing the random blinking, twitching, and involuntary breathing of people onstage making no voluntary movements; and "literature" consists of people gazing at sequences of bound, blank pages while thinking whatever random thoughts the activity provokes in their minds? Would any such concept as "art" be needed in this imaginary world? Would such a concept ever arise? What human need would be served by the activities described above? And if such a need existed, would a special category such as "art" be needed, or ever be invented, to describe the activities people engaged in to meet that need?
> 
> Returning to the world in which we actually live, I would ask exactly the same questions, all of which arise from one fundamental question: What is art for? Why does it exist? What human need(s) does it serve? And if we are going to ask what is art and what is not, should we not keep that in mind as the first and most basic question to be asked?
> 
> Speaking for myself, I can think of an infinite number of ways to spend 4'33" of my time which meet my needs as a human being. Listening to the noises in my environment may be one of them, but I don't need someone calling himself a "composer" to bring me out of the house, make me find parking downtown, and take my money at the door, to induce me to do it and convince me "philosophically" that the experience is worth my while. Indeed, if an experience of meditative attention is what I want, I'd infinitely prefer stretching out on a grassy hillside under the summer sun and listening to birds singing and wind in the trees. What John Cage thinks or intends, or what he wants me to think, perceive or attend to, or what he does with the rest of his time to justify the title of "composer" (and of course he does compose music), is of absolutely no interest to me in the context of that 4'33" slice out of my life, which, if I have come to it unawares (which is impossible now that we're all in on the joke), I will regard as nothing more than an idiotic and offensive waste of time.
> 
> I hasten to add that I speak only for myself, for fear of looking up and find my home surrounded by raised pitchforks. But then, perhaps I could call the neighbors to look out their windows and congratulate myself on having created a work of "performance art."


A long-winded way to say: "To hell with all you poseurs".

I agree with you though.


----------



## scratchgolf

millionrainbows said:


> What's the difference between "disliking a work," "not being open to a work," and declaring that it is "not music?" *I see none,* regardless of the supposed 'objectivity' of the inquiry.


I see a clear difference. My example follows

4'33" - a work I DO NOT consider music, yet I'm open to it and can't claim to like or dislike it.
Ionisation by Varese - a work I DO consider music and I'm open to. However, I dislike it.
Gesang der Junglinge by Stockhausen - a work I do not consider music, and may never be open to. Simply due to a complete lack of interest.

I don't see this as making me a "lazy" modern man or a closed-minded person. Not in the slightest. I also don't like mushrooms. I'm open to them though. I don't pick them off pizza. I don't refuse casseroles which contain mushrooms. I realize that my tastes may one day change. Still, when I go grocery shopping, I walk past the mushrooms each and every time. I also don't go on mushroom forums and bash those who enjoy mushrooms. Does this make me a "food racist" or a reasonable person with personal preferences?


----------



## Woodduck

shangoyal said:


> A long-winded way to say: "To hell with all you poseurs".
> 
> I agree with you though.


If I seem long-winded, it's because I'm trying to reveal to you an alternative, unprecedented, and profoundly artistic way to spend 4'33" seconds of your time.


----------



## PetrB

scratchgolf said:


> I see a clear difference. My example follows
> 
> 4'33" - a work I DO NOT consider music, yet I'm open to it and can't claim to like or dislike it.
> Ionisation by Varese - a work I DO consider music and I'm open to. However, I dislike it.
> Gesang der Junglinge by Stockhausen - a work I do not consider music, and may never be open to. Simply due to a complete lack of interest.
> 
> I don't see this as making me a "lazy" modern man or a closed-minded person. Not in the slightest. I also don't like mushrooms. I'm open to them though. I don't pick them off pizza. I don't refuse casseroles which contain mushrooms. I realize that my tastes may one day change. Still, when I go grocery shopping, I walk past the mushrooms each and every time. I also don't go on mushroom forums and bash those who enjoy mushrooms. Does this make me a "food racist" or a reasonable person with personal preferences?


I wouldn't even feel the need to include 'reasonable' in that, i.e. you don't care for mushrooms, you don't care for mushrooms, while You are wise enough to not say, "I will not like mushrooms for the entire duration of my life," while that is as likely as not.

If any one "liked it all, its all the same to me," they are probably very low in or plum out of supply in the discretion ability department.

If any one truly "Got everything" they might be the most replete polymath the world has ever known


----------



## Blancrocher

Another possible boundary of "music"--not my own, incidentally--is work composed specifically with a pedagogical intent and not for public performance. Few of us would want to rule out The Art of Fugue, say--but perhaps some of the early books of Bartok's Mikrokosmos (a work I'd recommend hearing in its entirety, btw, if you haven't yet)? Even the composer, in some cases, may not have thought of it as music--or at least not as "art music."


----------



## scratchgolf

Woodduck said:


> Speaking for myself, I can think of an infinite number of ways to spend 4'33" of my time which meet my needs as a human being. Listening to the noises in my environment may be one of them, but I don't need someone calling himself a "composer" to bring me out of the house, make me find parking downtown, and take my money at the door, to induce me to do it and convince me "philosophically" that the experience is worth my while. Indeed, if an experience of meditative attention is what I want, I'd infinitely prefer stretching out on a grassy hillside under the summer sun and listening to birds singing and wind in the trees.


I said before I'd be interested in experiencing it performed along with other favorite works. Not stand alone or with other works I don't enjoy. I completely see what you're saying and agree that lying back and just listening to your surroundings can be extremely rewarding. If it took John Cage to remind me of this then bravo John Cage. Sincerely. I'll also do it on my own terms though. What I'd never do is purchase an album like 
http://www.amazon.com/Homage-John-C...qid=1401646668&sr=1-1&keywords=4'33+john+cage for $8.99, or accept a red piece of paper as a print of Gerhard Richter's "Blood Red Mirror".


----------



## mmsbls

Woodduck said:


> What John Cage thinks or intends, or what he wants me to think, perceive or attend to, or what he does with the rest of his time to justify the title of "composer" (and of course he does compose music), is of absolutely no interest to me in the context of that 4'33" slice out of my life, which, if I have come to it unawares (which is impossible now that we're all in on the joke), I will regard as nothing more than an idiotic and offensive waste of time.


Although you did not specifically state that 4'33" is not art or music, I assume from your post that you feel that way. Do you understand why others feel that it is art? Do you believe that it's obviously not art or that certain assumptions lead to that view?


----------



## Guest

Woodduck, I think that all your imaginary events have happened in the real world.

Apparently artists from all genres thought it necessary at the time to do these things.

There was a sense in the fifties and sixties that everything needed to start up again from the beginning.

And those things you mention as imaginary were actual things that embody the idea of beginning again.

The only thing that was truly imaginary was the idea that this would be the only way artists would work.

Of course, it's not.

And only people obsessed with posterity would even ask if things like this would last. They probably don't need to last, or only as long as people need to be reminded. I know of a certain performer who starts each concert with _4'33"_ to focus the audience's attention on what--to this artist--really matters.

Each performance I've attended of this piece has been quite different, so apparently it hasn't run its course, yet. Not for me, anyway. If I never hear _Eine Kleine Nachtmusik_ again, however.... Just per example. I do not dislike Mozart nor am I trying to devalue Eine Kleine.


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## mmsbls

some guy said:


> I know of a certain performer who starts each concert with _4'33"_ to focus the audience's attention on what--to this artist--really matters.


Now that is interesting! Would you mind sharing the performer's name and something about the type of art or music they perform? If there are examples of his/her work on the internet, I can just sample them.


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## millionrainbows

Woodduck said:


> Where are the boundaries of art? Here is a thought experiment.
> 
> Envision a world in which: 1) Every person calling himself a "composer" offers as "music" only a person walking onto an empty stage, saying "listen" to an audience, walking off, and returning later to say "the concert is over."....


Sorry, nice try with your metaphoric what-if, but things don't work that way.
Cage was an established composer, and was an important catalyst in the art & music of America during his time. 
Likewise, Robert Rauschenberg's "white paintings" cannot be considered in isolation, but in the context of his other work. Similarly, you need to see Barnett Newman's progression towards minimalism in its complete context (by looking at the book from front to back). :lol:


----------



## millionrainbows

mmsbls said:


> Do you honestly believe I am intent on invalidating modern composers and their works? Honestly?


No; although that is what this whole thread premise would appear to be shrouded in; a distaste for modern works, 4'33" in particular.

No, I think the real intent is to throw some stuff out there and see if it sticks to the wall.

If one stirs-up an apparently clean glass of water, one can then see if there is any 'residue' which appears which dirties the water.

Sorry, no residue here from me or someguy. Just an acknowledgement that modernism is once again being used as an 'innocent' premise to try and stir-up emotions, so it can engender statements like this one following, which start becoming 'personal observations' of these 'unfortunate reactions:'



mmsbls said:


> _I'm sorry you feel as you do. I do believe your views stem from misunderstanding my views. I understand how some TC members feel strongly about modern/contemporary music and wish to defend it strongly when another member attacks it. Some members do degrade new music and dismiss it as crap. I wish they wouldn't.
> 
> To be frank, I'm one of your allies. I actually defend and promote modern/contemporary music (but slightly differently than you do). I'm not sure it makes sense to attack an ally. _


Wow, I'm an attacker?



mmsbls said:


> _Certainly, (you may) argue that my views are mistaken (they could well be). But accusing me of racism, Cage bashing, aggressive behavior, invalidating modern music, and dehumanizing other TC members seems possibly a bit much. Wouldn't you agree?[/_QUOTE]
> 
> No, I just said that 'invalidating' a recognized work such as 4'33" is akin to 'musical racism,' which uses the same psychological mechanism which allows humans to 'dehumanize' other people in warfare, or as they do in racism.
> 
> And if you don't like 4'33", that's fine, but don't walk through "the hood" of modernism and broadcast it through a bullhorn, or you might get into a scuffle.
> 
> As far as "Cage bashing,"_ yes, I think you are 'bashing' Yoko Ono and many other conceptual artists as well, by using this forum to promote your views that this kind of art is invalid.
> _
> I never said you 'dehumanized' other TC members like myself; but I do think that you are being insensitive and are showing a disregard for certain composers and works that other members consider valid, historically recognized statements.


----------



## millionrainbows

scratchgolf said:


> Yikes. I do want to thank you for the Philip Glass recommendation you indirectly gave to me. I've had him on regular rotation since that day and he may very well be the link which brings my listening into the modern age. For that, I'm much obliged. *What you just wrote though has no place here, in my opinion.* I'm certainly not going to judge the music you obviously love by the way you promote it but I hope you consider this in the future. I'm sad that this discussion has gone to such extremes.


Well, you certainly turned that around! I love Yoko Ono, if that's your thrust. Haven't you ever seen the 'racism' card played?

Philip Glass was a taxi driver for many years in NYC, and no doubt developed a strong degree of 'street smarts' in order to survive.

*I've seen for myself the unabashed hatred that people have shown in these forums for Yoko Ono and John Cage, both of whom were colleagues in NYC.
*
If you can't stand the heat, or my strategies, it's not my problem. I will defend John Cage as one of America's most important composers, regardless.


----------



## aleazk

Although I think millions needs to relax a little, I see his point and agree. Cage is now a part of musical history, and that, I would say, is quite set on stone right now. So, I think it's useless, an overkill, and superfluous to the musical history to state, for the nth time, that one does not consider Cage's 4'33'' music.


----------



## Blancrocher

aleazk said:


> Although I think millions needs to relax a little, I see his point and agree. Cage is now a part of musical history, and that, I would say, is quite set on stone right now.


True, though I'd prefer to say that he left a sounding sculpture which lasts. Cage never did much with stone, surprisingly.


----------



## Guest

Hey mms,

The performer's name is Madeline Shapiro. She's a cellist, and has specialized in contemporary music ever since Paul Zukovsky suggested in grad school that she learn a piece by Davidovsky for cello and synthesized sounds.


----------



## millionrainbows

aleazk said:


> Although I think millions needs to relax a little, I see his point and agree. Cage is now a part of musical history, and that, I would say, is quite set on stone right now. So, I think it's useless, an overkill, and superfluous to the musical history to state, for the nth time, that one does not consider Cage's 4'33'' music.


Thank you, aleazk, I think. Perhaps Buspar or Welbutrin, both of which are recognized anti-anxiety drugs? Ah, well, that's another thread, for another subject, which will be carefully monitored by law enforcement and concerned social workers. :lol:

Actually, it would be very possible to sit through an experience of 4'33" and gain no meaning from it whatsoever. That's a valid reaction. If I am not in the mood or very receptive, I might experience the same lack of meaning.

But on other occasions, I might hear that car-honk as a counterpoint to a chair squeak, and the note the dramatic entrance of the air-conditioning system kicking-in, punctuated by the auditorium door slamming, orchestrated by a disgruntled audience member from Nebraska. What drama! What sardonic humor~!What grandeur!

Yes, either way, these are valid reactions to a performance of 4'33". They do not attempt to turn 4'33" into an abstract generality. They are comments on actual experiences of the work.


----------



## millionrainbows

some guy said:


> Hey mms,
> 
> The performer's name is Madeline Shapiro. She's a cellist, and has specialized in contemporary music ever since Paul Zukovsky suggested in grad school that she learn a piece by Davidovsky for cello and synthesized sounds.


I adore Paul Zukofsky.


----------



## scratchgolf

millionrainbows said:


> Well, you certainly turned that around! I love Yoko Ono, if that's your thrust. Haven't you ever seen the 'racism' card played?
> 
> Philip Glass was a taxi driver for many years in NYC, and no doubt developed a strong degree of 'street smarts' in order to survive.
> 
> *I've seen for myself the unabashed hatred that people have shown in these forums for Yoko Ono and John Cage, both of whom were colleagues in NYC.
> *
> If you can't stand the heat, or my strategies, it's not my problem. I will defend John Cage as one of America's most important composers, regardless.


Your passion is admirable but your tactics leave a bit to be desired, in my humblest of opinions. I've always enjoyed your posts, as intellect is hard to fake. The heat? I've taken my share so no worries there. My yikes was a response to your extreme leap. It's the 2nd time you've brought a nuke to a fist fight in this thread and I don't see the need. I am pleased that you acknowledged me finally because I'd love to pick your brain on some of the music you're obviously knowledgeable about. I was beginning to worry there was a glitch causing my posts to be invisible to you. I'd actually love if you could point me in a good direction in regards to exploring Cage's music. Your Glass recommendation was spot on so something similar from Cage may do the trick. A PM would be fine if you prefer. I only ask that you lighten up a bit. Defending that which doesn't require defending is an exercise in futility.


----------



## Guest

millionrainbows said:


> I adore Paul Zukofsky.


Oh, who doesn't?!


----------



## millionrainbows

scratchgolf said:


> Your passion is admirable but your tactics leave a bit to be desired, in my humblest of opinions. I've always enjoyed your posts, as intellect is hard to fake. The heat? I've taken my share so no worries there. My yikes was a response to your extreme leap. It's the 2nd time you've brought a nuke to a fist fight in this thread and I don't see the need. I am pleased that you acknowledged me finally because I'd love to pick your brain on some of the music you're obviously knowledgeable about. I was beginning to worry there was a glitch causing my posts to be invisible to you. I'd actually love if you could point me in a good direction in regards to exploring Cage's music. You Glass recommendation was spot on so something similar from Cage may do the trick. A PM would be fine if you prefer. I only ask that you lighten up a bit. Defending that which doesn't require defending is an exercise in futility.


Okay, I'm all for "the peacemakers," and I don't mean that as an oblique reference to handguns. I just really don't see the need for this discussion on 'what is not music.' And I'm sick of defending 4'33". I hereby withdraw, unless I feel compelled to comment again.


----------



## Hassid

It's funny that Zukofsky, that specialist on modern composers, recorded very young a complete version of Paganini's 24, respecting (or so he said) all the original tempi marked on the sheet. I believe is totally OOP and very difficult to find.


----------



## millionrainbows

some guy said:


> Oh, who doesn't?!


He was first heard by me on Reich's Violin Phase, then I followed him to Vanguard and Charles Ives. I love that scratchy, crude sound he gets. No slouch as a conductor, either. I'd love to eat lobster with him up there in the East.


----------



## aleazk

Also, regarding the OP, I don't think 4'33'' is a good example. It's a very peculiar and unique piece; to say that 4'33'' is your boundary, mmsbls, gives me very little information about your boundary as a matter of fact. That's why it sounds more like an overkill directed to that particular piece...


----------



## ArtMusic

some guy said:


> Hey mms,
> 
> The performer's name is Madeline Shapiro. She's a cellist, and has specialized in contemporary music ever since Paul Zukovsky suggested in grad school that she learn a piece by Davidovsky for cello and synthesized sounds.


I just picked a clip on youtube. Shapiro's music is atrocious. This piece - music or blending sounds with nature? Music it ain't but sure is some sort of nature sound blend effect. Anyone from music school could have dine it.


----------



## millionrainbows

Hassid said:


> It's funny that Zukofsky, that specialist on modern composers, recorded very young a complete version of Paganini's 24, respecting (or so he said) all the original tempi marked on the sheet. I believe is totally OOP and very difficult to find.


Oh, yeah, one of those Vanguard releases. Also, some ragtime stuff, and electronic/modernism. I think the rags are available on a different label. The Ives sonatas with Gilbert Kalish are on Folkways, but are different recordings, on CD-R.

Thanks for talking me down, guys. I tend to get "combat flashbacks" from the old Amazon wars.:lol:


----------



## Woodduck

mmsbls said:


> Although you did not specifically state that 4'33" is not art or music, I assume from your post that you feel that way. Do you understand why others feel that it is art? Do you believe that it's obviously not art or that certain assumptions lead to that view?


My short answer would be "no, I don't consider it music or art." Of course anyone who wants to may define these terms in such a way as to include it. I consider it as, at best, an experiment in perception. Such things may interest some people and I would never say that that interest is illegitimate. I would only ask these people what they would _not_ include under the concepts of music and art. As my somewhat whimsical thought experiment is intended to point out, when we have reached the point of calling an occurrence a work of art merely because someone calling himself an artist produces it and calls it one, we have reached the bizarre epistemological position of claiming that anything produced by anyone is anything they say it is. Thus the questions of how the concept of art arises, of why it should exist and of what purposes it serves, are simply bypassed. Myself, I think those are interesting questions, and if Cage's little experiment has us thinking about them it is undoubtedly good for something. I just don't think that what it's good for is what music is good for, or that experiments like it could ever give rise to such an idea as "art" in the first place.


----------



## Nereffid

ArtMusic said:


> I just picked a clip on youtube. Shapiro's music is atrocious. This piece - music or blending sounds with nature? Music it ain't but sure is some sort of nature sound blend effect. Anyone from music school could have dine it.


Oops!
The music played in that clip wasn't atrocious, it was rather wonderful.
Try again!
:tiphat:


----------



## aleazk

millionrainbows said:


> Thank you, aleazk, I think. Perhaps Buspar or Welbutrin, both of which are recognized anti-anxiety drugs? Ah, well, that's another thread, for another subject, which will be carefully monitored by law enforcement and concerned social workers. :lol:
> 
> Actually, it would be very possible to sit through an experience of 4'33" and gain no meaning from it whatsoever. That's a valid reaction. If I am not in the mood or very receptive, I might experience the same lack of meaning.
> 
> But on other occasions, I might hear that car-honk as a counterpoint to a chair squeak, and the note the dramatic entrance of the air-conditioning system kicking-in, punctuated by the auditorium door slamming, orchestrated by a disgruntled audience member from Nebraska. What drama! What sardonic humor~!What grandeur!
> 
> Yes, either way, these are valid reactions to a performance of 4'33". They do not attempt to turn 4'33" into an abstract generality. They are comments on actual experiences of the work.


A green tea and this will be enough. This first session will be without charge.


----------



## KenOC

ArtMusic said:


> I just picked a clip on youtube. Shapiro's music is atrocious.


Shapiro's Water Birds isn't half bad. As a reference point, try John Cage's similarly-named Water Walk, starting at 5:25 of this video of his 1960 appearance on What's My Line. Enjoy!


----------



## EdwardBast

Marschallin Blair said:


> I'd argue that Wittgenstein, though certainly clever, was fundamentally wrong. If a definition is too narrow, then it needs to be reformulated to encompass a wider range of attributes for a concept. Basic stuff really. Elementary Aristotle. Genus and species. Seventh-grade biology.
> 
> I think Hegel, to the extent that I imagine that I understand him, is even more correct than Wittgenstein with his unending dialectic of 'thesis,' 'antithesis,' and 'synthesis'-- which is just saying that truer propositions are arrived at through the process of trial and error; blind variation and selective retention; conjecture and refutation.


Sounds great! When someone accomplishes this feat and comes up with a viable definition of music - or game - let me know.


----------



## Blancrocher

I can't stand the way John Cage treats modern music with such a lack of seriousness in that video, KenOC.

No wonder they liked him so much in Paris--no morals.


----------



## mmsbls

aleazk said:


> Also, regarding the OP, I don't think 4'33'' is a good example. It's a very peculiar and unique piece; to say that 4'33'' is your boundary, mmsbls, gives me very little information about your boundary as a matter of fact. That's why it sounds more like an overkill directed to that particular piece...


I actually did not say that 4'33" _is_ my boundary. That would have been close to useless as you say. I said:



> For me the work is not music because the composer or creator has no control over the sounds that are heard during the performance. For me musical sounds must be a least somewhat intentional.


That was what I hoped people would respond to - the concept of the creator's intention toward the sounds heard. 4'33" was simply as example of the kind of work to which I was referring not my actual boundary. I clearly made a mistake in mentioning it since people preferred to respond to 4'33" rather than intentionality toward sound.


----------



## aleazk

mmsbls said:


> I actually did not say that 4'33" _is_ my boundary. That would have been close to useless as you say. I said:
> 
> That was what I hoped people would respond to - the concept of the creator's intention toward the sounds heard. 4'33" was simply as example of the kind of work to which I was referring not my actual boundary. I clearly made a mistake in mentioning it since people preferred to respond to 4'33" rather than intentionality toward sound.


Well, the problem is that, despite the good intentions you may have had (which I believe are genuine, knowing you), the whole notion of the thread is kind of "negative". I think it's true that people have boundaries, etc., but to invite them to fully describe those boundaries and particularly in reference to "what they 'do not' consider music" is not going to end well. I think this topic is more appropriate for a personal introspection or a face to face conversation than a thread on an open forum. That's my opinion, anyway, and that's why I did not participate in the thread even when I read most of the entries.


----------



## Crudblud

ArtMusic said:


> I just picked a clip on youtube. Shapiro's music is atrocious. This piece - music or blending sounds with nature? Music it ain't but sure is some sort of nature sound blend effect. Anyone from music school could have dine it.


I think that's pretty good, actually. I'd like to hear more.


----------



## EdwardBast

I am perfectly willing to accept 4'33" as music. It is easy to do so under what is usually called the "institutional definition" of art: Art is what the art community sees and hears as art. This is no worse than many other definitions offered in this thread. I am also willing to accept a urinal displayed in an art museum under the same definition. IMO, 4'33" was one of those groaningly obvious ideas that was more or less inevitable. Someone was going to do it. Yawn. It can't be done again. Thank the gods. Same with the urinal. Yawn. We get it. Can we move on now?


----------



## aleazk

EdwardBast said:


> I am perfectly willing to accept 4'33" as music. It is easy to do so under what is usually called the "institutional definition" of art: Art is what the art community sees and hears as art. This is no worse than many other definitions of music offered in this thread. I am also willing to accept a urinal displayed in an art museum under the same definition. IMO, 4'33" was one of those groaningly obvious ideas that was more or less inevitable. Someone was going to do it. Yawn. It can't be done again. Thank the gods. Same with the urinal. Yawn. We get it. Can we move on now?


Right!

From an interview to Ligeti:

_"-...but I had to develop a special notation, but this was the early 60's, was the time of musical graphic. I thought musical graphic, as such, is a quite stupid idea.

-But you went through the period?

-I went through the period. I did all crazy, stupid things to try. I even wrote a piece
without knowing the Cage piece, 4 minutes 33 seconds - a piece which consisted from one sound and then nothing, silence. I should know better John Cage, then I would not do it."_

I think Cage's 4'33'' is a moderately interesting idea that, as you say, was inevitable. And, indeed, _can we move on, please?!_

Note: I know I'm giving food to certain people that will take the "I did all crazy, stupid things" out of context in order to use it to invalidate all of Ligeti's oeuvre and modernism in general (their modus operandi is that obvious). It's unfortunate. But, on the other hand, nobody takes them seriously.


----------



## mmsbls

millionrainbows said:


> No; although that is what this whole thread premise would appear to be shrouded in; a distaste for modern works, 4'33" in particular...


This was your response to my impassioned paragraph about how I have come to greatly appreciate modern music, listen to it more than any other genre, and defend it on TC. In addition I stated "I think the work is interesting, courageous, and important. Hardly invalidating Cage or 4'33"."

It seems obvious that we somehow don't understand each other. I'm not sure why it's so hard to communicate with each other, but maybe it doesn't make much sense to continue speaking past one another.

I'm glad you defend modern music. I'm glad you contribute here at TC because you have interesting things to say. Let's move on and continue to appreciate what we both enjoy.


----------



## KenOC

I'm not sure what the fuss is over 4'33". Cage was hardly being original -- silent music goes back at least to the 19th century, with _Funeral March for the Obsequies of a Deaf Man _(1897) by Alphonse Allais. After that, and before Cage, there were others.

Cage actually wrote a second similar piece, 4'33' #2, ten years after the first. Guess it took a full decade for inspiration to strike again! Or did he simply sense his notoriety fading? No, that would be an unkind thing to say...


----------



## mmsbls

aleazk said:


> Well, the problem is that, despite the good intentions you may have had (which I believe are genuine, knowing you), the whole notion of the thread is kind of "negative". I think it's true that people have boundaries, etc., but to invite them to fully describe those boundaries and particularly in reference to "what they 'do not' consider music" is not going to end well. I think this topic is more appropriate for a personal introspection or a face to face conversation than a thread on an open forum. That's my opinion, anyway, and that's why I did not participate in the thread even when I read most of the entries.


Fair enough. That's a very reasonable opinion. I personally don't see it as negative _for me_. You and I are scientists, and scientists do this all the time without passing judgement. But music is different. I was truly interested, but maybe this endeavor was a mistake (as certainly the inclusion of 4'33" was a huge mistake on my part). Thanks for your thoughts. I do believe it's better to focus on positive aspects of music, and maybe a forum such as this is just not the place for these questions.


----------



## Blancrocher

KenOC said:


> I'm not sure what the fuss is over 4'33". Cage was hardly being original -- silent music goes back at least to the 19th century, with _Funeral March for the Obsequies of a Deaf Man _(1897) by Alphonse Allais.


The comments on the Youtube video are worth reading, perhaps:






*p.s.* Particularly enjoyed the one about Ravel's orchestration.


----------



## DeepR

RudyKens said:


> My wife has all of these from the Eno Ambient series so I'll let you know how random they are if I'm alive to tell the tale in 3 hours or so :lol:
> View attachment 42958


The ambient series by Brian Eno are all quite different, but what they have in common is that a lot of effort was put into them in order to make it seem more or less random, not like structured musical compositions, yet still interesting to listen to (for some, at least) and that implies it isn't actually random at all. 
Bottom line, it's carefully constructed music.


----------



## KenOC

Blancrocher said:


> The comments on the Youtube video are worth reading, perhaps...


The composer instructed: "Great sorrows being mute, the performers should occupy themselves with the sole task of counting the bars, instead of indulging in the kind of indecent row that destroys the august character of the best obsequies."

Perhaps mmsbls will opine on whether or not this is "music."


----------



## KenOC

Some great musical minds have addressed the problem of silence. Here's Karlheinz Kloppweiser, famous German reductionist, speaking to Glenn Gould about his own music "with German silence, which is of course organic, as opposed to French silence, which is ornamental."


----------



## Guest

Cage did not write a piece called _4'33" no. 2._ He wrote a piece called _0'00",_ which was published as _4'33" (no. 2) (0'00"),_ for reasons best known to Peters' management, which consisted of the instruction to perform a disciplined action at maximum amplification. Does that sound to you like something similar to _4'33"_? To me, either.

There is, however, a piece written in 1989, called _One3,_ which is for amplified concert hall, amplified just to the edge of feedback. This one is more obviously a variant of _4'33"._ (Wiki even says that the whole title is _One3 = 4′33″ (0′00″) + GClef,_ but again, I strongly suspect a Peters' move here as well. It's only a suspicion, though. That is, it may or may not correspond to fact.)

Responding appropriately to the other bits of your posts would necessitate going contrary to the ToS, which is a bit frustrating, as those are the bits that I'd really like to repond to appropriately. Oh well. That and around €3.50 will buy you a cup of coffee. I can at least point out what you know perfectly well because you've been told over and over again, which is that Cage's piece is not about silence.


----------



## PetrB

some guy said:


> That and around €3.50 will buy you a cup of coffee.


€3.50 = 4.77 U.S.D. Where are you now, London, New York, Tokyo? Lol.


----------



## Ukko

PetrB said:


> €3.50 = 4.77 U.S.D. Where are you now, London? Lol.


In September 1955 a mug of coffee at the St. Louis train station cost 5¢.


----------



## KenOC

some guy said:


> Responding appropriately to the other bits of your posts would necessitate going contrary to the ToS, which is a bit frustrating, as those are the bits that I'd really like to repond to appropriately.


I'm sure that any errors in my posts can be pointed out without violating the terms of service. In fact, you can disagree if you like without citing errors at all. So I'm a bit puzzled.


----------



## PetrB

Ukko said:


> In September 1955 a mug of coffee at the St. Louis train station cost 5¢.


Remembering the day you left town?


----------



## Blancrocher

EdwardBast said:


> I am perfectly willing to accept 4'33" as music. It is easy to do so under what is usually called the "institutional definition" of art: Art is what the art community sees and hears as art. This is no worse than many other definitions offered in this thread. I am also willing to accept a urinal displayed in an art museum under the same definition. IMO, 4'33" was one of those groaningly obvious ideas that was more or less inevitable. Someone was going to do it. Yawn. It can't be done again. Thank the gods. Same with the urinal. Yawn. We get it. Can we move on now?


Of course, by these standards a performer using a urinal in a concert hall could be considered music if the composer included that in the score.

I suppose I agree with that, given that I espoused the same principle earlier--but I wouldn't be upset if someone else disagreed.


----------



## PetrB

Blancrocher said:


> Of course, by these standards a performer using a urinal in a concert hall could be considered music if the composer included that in the score.
> 
> I suppose I agree with that--but I wouldn't be upset if someone else disagreed.


Currently, that would not be at all hip unless there was a waterproof pickup for amplification as part of the deal.


----------



## aleazk

PetrB said:


> Currently, that would not be at all hip unless there was a waterproof pickup for amplification as part of the deal.


And a towel covering the private parts of the performer! There are old ladies in the public!


----------



## EdwardBast

This thread seems to be going right down the . . .


----------



## aleazk

EdwardBast said:


> This thread seems to be going right down the . . .


The urinal?, oh yeah!  We can hang it in the wall of a museum after it is closed!


----------



## PetrB

aleazk said:


> And a towel covering the private parts of the performer! There are old ladies in the public!


Sorry, that towel has to go; it is just _not_ post-modernist.


----------



## Nereffid

KenOC said:


> Shapiro's Water Birds isn't half bad. As a reference point, try John Cage's similarly-named Water Walk, starting at 5:25 of this video of his 1960 appearance on What's My Line. Enjoy!


Now, this is interesting, because I enjoyed that performance and am perfectly happy to call it music. But as I was watching I realised that the crucial aspect of my enjoyment was that I was _watching_. Take away the visual element and I wouldn't be entertained or interested. When I can see Cage performing I "get it" as music, but with pure audio it sounds like random noises, even when I know that it's not random but precisely planned. Without the visual element the music is, to my ears, essentially indistinguishable from sounds produced with no compositional intent, the incidental sounds of life going on, which is outside my musical boundary/grey area.
Indeed, I find myself in the bizarre situation that removing the visuals and just listening to the sound is a less enjoyable musical experience than removing the _audio_ portion and engaging my imagination about which sounds are being produced.
I'm sure Cage would have been amused by that!

(Incidentally, what top-rated US network show these days would ever dream of inviting an avant-garde composer to perform for 5 minutes?)


----------



## Headphone Hermit

Ukko said:


> In September 1955 a mug of coffee at the St. Louis train station cost 5¢.


Did you enjoy it, Ukko? :lol:


----------



## science

Nereffid said:


> (Incidentally, what top-rated US network show these days would ever dream of inviting an avant-garde composer to perform for 5 minutes?)


Once such a composer gets such an invitation, is he or she still avant-garde?


----------



## Guest

PetrB said:


> €3.50 = 4.77 U.S.D. Where are you now, London, New York, Tokyo? Lol.


Barcelona. Where you can get coffee for cheaper than three fifty, it's true. But three fifty will cover practically any cup you order anywhere in town.


----------



## Ukko

Headphone Hermit said:


> Did you enjoy it, Ukko? :lol:


Yes. The "St. Louis train station coffee" is one of those scraps of memory that have stuck in my mind. I even remember being impressed by the heavy mug the coffee was served in. I was in uniform, on my way to '2nd 8' training at a base in the Texas panhandle, running late. Because of a derailment ahead of my train near Baltimore, I had ended up riding on a 'local stops' run though several southern states; it was taking a long time. Another vignette from that journey was seeing for the first time, through the day coach window, separate outhouses labeled 'Colored" and "White" instead of "Men and "Women".

Aren't you glad you asked. _Headphone_?


----------



## Headphone Hermit

I am, yes.

Genuinely. Its a reminiscence from outside of my experience and *that* interests me - whilst I understand why we all hide behind avatars and pseudonyms, one of the thing I value about involvement in TC is the sense that you can slowly discover the person behind the avatar :tiphat:


----------



## GioCar

That's all very nice, sincerely.

Now, is it possible to have an executive summary of all the above? I got lost...


----------



## PetrB

GioCar said:


> That's all very nice, sincerely.
> 
> Now, is it possible to have an executive summary of all the above? I got lost...


.................................................


----------



## millionrainbows

KenOC said:


> I'm not sure what the fuss is over 4'33". Cage was hardly being original -- silent music goes back at least to the 19th century, with _Funeral March for the Obsequies of a Deaf Man _(1897) by Alphonse Allais. After that, and before Cage, there were others.
> 
> Cage actually wrote a second similar piece, 4'33' #2, ten years after the first. Guess it took a full decade for inspiration to strike again! Or did he simply sense his notoriety fading? No, that would be an unkind thing to say...


But 4'33" is not "silent." It consists of whatever sounds are present at the performance, which the listeners are supposed to be aware of, and if possible, listen to them as they would music, supplying the sounds with whatever meaning might strike them.

Also, 4'33" is a religious/spiritual work, since it facilitates a state of silent awareness, as in Buddhist meditation.

Also, the statement "...did he simply sense his notoriety fading?" implies that Cage was a shallow fame-seeker. The fact is, Cage and his works are still being performed, and he has an established legacy in music history. What will the legacy be of his critics here in this internet forum? Some obscure posts, stored away in some server somewhere...yawn...









_*John Cage, the man you love to hate*_


----------



## arpeggio

*Why*

There is one aspect of these modernism debates, like the one concerning over the music of John Cage, is why the anti-Cage faction persist in perpetuating the argument? We all know who the individuals who hate Cage are yet they constantly want to remind us of that fact. Even though I have told you a hundred times that Cage is a fraud, I will tell you one more time syndrome. Yet in all of the years I have participated in these debates not once have I seen a situation where an anti-Cage person has changed the mind of a pro-Cage person.

In another forum an anti-Cage person stated that he hope that he could prevent a person new to classical music from being corrupted from the evils of modernism. :devil:


----------



## millionrainbows

arpeggio said:


> There is one aspect of these modernism debates, like the one concerning over the music of John Cage, is why the anti-Cage faction persist in perpetuating the argument? We all know who the individuals who hate Cage are yet they constantly want to remind us of that fact. Even though I have told you a hundred times that Cage is a fraud, I will tell you one more time syndrome. Yet in all of the years I have participated in these debates not once have I seen a situation where an anti-Cage person has changed the mind of a pro-Cage person.
> 
> In another forum an anti-Cage person stated that he hope that he could prevent a person new to classical music from being corrupted from the evils of modernism. :devil:


...but we all know who he is, don't we? The only person who really knows Cage was a fraud was his first wife...Hyuk hyuk!


----------



## GioCar

PetrB said:


> .................................................
> View attachment 43308


......  ......


----------



## arpeggio

millionrainbows said:


> ...but we all know who he is, don't we? The only person who really knows Cage was a fraud was his first wife...Hyuk hyuk!


Moan!!!! I get it.


----------



## Guest

How large is this anti-Cage faction that is being referred to? Is their repetitive posting any more significant or insidious than the repetitive posting on any of the other old chestnuts that crop up from time-to-ad-nauseam-time? I mean, just how often do the pro-lobbyists for _any _composer or movement or sub-genre need to reassure themselves that Beethoven/Bach/Romantics/opera/avant-garde/minimalism/Merzbow (etc etc etc) is the greatest? Not any more than necessary to maintain the balance against the anti-lobby, I suppose?


----------



## Jobis

arpeggio said:


> There is one aspect of these modernism debates, like the one concerning over the music of John Cage, is why the anti-Cage faction persist in perpetuating the argument? We all know who the individuals who hate Cage are yet they constantly want to remind us of that fact. Even though I have told you a hundred times that Cage is a fraud, I will tell you one more time syndrome. Yet in all of the years I have participated in these debates not once have I seen a situation where an anti-Cage person has changed the mind of a pro-Cage person.
> 
> In another forum an anti-Cage person stated that he hope that he could prevent a person new to classical music from being corrupted from the evils of modernism. :devil:


I was anti-Cage, these discussions are slowly making me sympathetic to the man. I think from now all I'll reserve judgement and retain the opinion that he was a composer of some pleasant music and a man with some interesting ideas.


----------



## Headphone Hermit

Jobis said:


> I was anti-Cage, these discussions are slowly making me sympathetic to the man. I think from now all I'll reserve judgement and retain the opinion that he was a composer of some *pleasant music *and a man with some interesting ideas.


If you said that of me, I'd hop up and down in fury!!!


----------



## science

It's apparent to everyone that the anti-Cage feeling is based on one single work that is probably most famous because people make jokes about it. If the pro-Cage faction weren't so defensive and sensitive, the anti-Cage thing would be laughable.


----------



## Stavrogin

Am I the only one who is pro-Cage, but still claims the right to set definitions of concepts related to music (and art in general) without being accused of closed-mindedness?


----------



## Guest

Pretty good work that one (4'33"), as the polemic continues to this day. Good on 'yer, John!
My less than 2 cents' worth in response to the OP : why on earth would anyone wish to impose boundaries on any art form?


----------



## Blake

Stavrogin said:


> Am I the only one who is pro-Cage, but still claims the right to set definitions of concepts related to music (and art in general) without being accused of closed-mindedness?


As long as the definitions remain somewhat 'superficial' and not caging. Heyoo

But really, definitions are a tool, and they shouldn't be used as binding agents... which is exactly what many do anyway.


----------



## Blancrocher

TalkingHead said:


> Pretty good work that one (4'33"), as the polemic continues to this day. Good on 'yer, John!
> My less than 2 cents' worth in response to the OP : why on earth would anyone wish to impose boundaries on any art form?


To stop the corners of the painting from curling, perhaps.


----------



## Guest

Ah but Blanc, were those curls intentional or an oversight? Certainly changes the picture somewhat.


----------



## aleazk

Blancrocher said:


> To stop the corners of the painting from curling, perhaps.


Most of those funny looking edges are put by other people, not the artists. Interpret that in the way you want ;-)


----------



## Stavrogin

Vesuvius said:


> As long as the definitions remain somewhat 'superficial' and not caging. Heyoo
> 
> But really, *definitions are a tool*, and they shouldn't be used as binding agents... which is exactly what many do anyway.


Caging? Pun intended I guess 

Aaw, exactly my point: definitions are a tool.
If I didn't care to consider why A differs from B, I probably wouldn't get the greatness of C which is different from both.


----------



## Jobis

aleazk said:


> Most of those funny looking edges are put by other people, not the artists. Interpret that in the way you want ;-)


I feel you're touching upon something very profound with that statement, if only I were smart enough to figure out what.


----------



## aleazk

Jobis said:


> I feel you're touching upon something very profound with that statement, if only I were smart enough to figure out what.


Well, look at this Monet with that tasteless and ridiculous Rococo-like frame:










(of course, it's some photoshop thingy; but I have seen things like that in real life)

The frame has no relation to the content of the painting. But, nevertheless, it's an accepted custom to do that kind of things.

Sometimes, I feel all these boundaries issues are akin to that: tasteless gallerists trying to put Rococo-like frames to a Monet.

(although I may be stretching things here, since I confess I'm not very familiar with the history of frames, etc., maybe it was put by Monet, lol; but I hope the point is clear)


----------



## Blancrocher

aleazk said:


> Sometimes, I feel all this boundaries issues are akin to that: tasteless gallerists trying to put Rococo-like frames to a Monet.


It's even worse on my end. Surrounding both the vulgar frame and the beautiful Monet, there is in addition a 1" black border with the words "MacBook Pro" adorning the bottom.

I sometimes fear that I never see anything as it was intended by the artist.


----------



## mmsbls

TalkingHead said:


> why on earth would anyone wish to impose boundaries on any art form?


I think the problem is with the word "impose". People tend to read much more into posts than is actually there. I certainly don't want to impose a boundary. But all of us have boundaries. Do you think a performance of "Death of a Salesman" is music? It certainly involves organized sound, but I think almost no one would consider it music. If you agree it's not music, you have determined a boundary. Did you impose a boundary on any art? Of course not. The play is exactly the same as before you stated the boundary. And although it's not music, it's wonderful art. If you think it _is_ music, drama groups can still (and will still) perform the play.

The problem with the thread has nothing to do with the actual content of the OP. That was a simple (and potentially interesting) question related to the philosophy of art. Thinking about what is and what is not music can be a fun, interesting, and especially an educational endeavor. The work 4'33" expanded many people's views of music, but it would never have happened without people thinking about the question in the OP. That's one of the reasons 4'33" is so important.

No, the problem with the OP is several-fold:

1) Mentioning 4'33" polarizes the TC community and often leads to unpleasant exchanges that cause members to feel badly and become less likely to participate. Looking back, I must have been "brain dead" to include 4'33" as an example. A huge mistake. Hopefully I'll never forget that lesson.

2) As aleazk clearly explained, setting boundaries in this manner is generally seen as a negative activity. It can easily appear that one is intending to say something bad about certain works rather than simply categorizing them into groups like symphonies, quartets, general works of art, etc. (which of course involve boundaries as well). And in fact, given the opportunity in threads such as these, people do just that.

3) As a result of "1" and "2", discussions of topics such as these _*posed in this manner*_ on open forums magnifies the potential for individuals to feed negatively off each other. The resulting discussion often is seen as unpleasant by many members, and the TC community as a whole may suffer.

The intent was a good one, but the execution was quite poor indeed.


----------



## science

Blancrocher said:


> I sometimes fear that I never see anything as it was intended by the artist.


You probably don't, and neither does anyone else.

At some point we're going to have to legitimize our own experiences.


----------



## scratchgolf

mmsbls said:


> The intent was a good one, but the execution was quite poor indeed.


I feel the execution was also very good. We are currently on page 22 so that should count for something. This is a talk forum so I'd say success in such a forum could be based on how much chatter a topic generates. I also find it more beneficial and educational when a topic is polarizing and strong opinions are voiced (within the...um...boundaries of reason and respect). I get a better read on people when these opinions surface, as opposed to a lollypop thread where everyone is basically on the same page. Much like with friendships, you get a true indication of how good your friends are when times are tough and things are at their worst. Learning you have a bad friend can be just as beneficial as learning you have a good friend. And speaking of friends, I made 2 new ones because of this topic. One of them seemed very unlikely at a certain point of the discussion but he made a very kind gesture and went out of his way to assist me in my ever expanding musical experience. For these reasons, I say this topic was and is an absolute success.


----------



## scratchgolf

Not to mention, the topics I create are typically dead within a few days and subsequently buried by threads such as "Mozart vs Hank Williams" and "Have Beethoven Ever Got Boring".


----------



## Sid James

mmsbls said:


> ...
> No, the problem with the OP is several-fold:
> 
> 1) Mentioning 4'33" polarizes the TC community and often leads to unpleasant exchanges that cause members to feel badly and become less likely to participate. Looking back, I must have been "brain dead" to include 4'33" as an example. A huge mistake. Hopefully I'll never forget that lesson.
> 
> 2) As aleazk clearly explained, setting boundaries in this manner is generally seen as a negative activity. It can easily appear that one is intending to say something bad about certain works rather than simply categorizing them into groups like symphonies, quartets, general works of art, etc. (which of course involve boundaries as well). And in fact, given the opportunity in threads such as these, people do just that.
> 
> 3) As a result of "1" and "2", discussions of topics such as these _*posed in this manner*_ on open forums magnifies the potential for individuals to feed negatively off each other. The resulting discussion often is seen as unpleasant by many members, and the TC community as a whole may suffer.
> 
> The intent was a good one, but the execution was quite poor indeed.


WEll I did a thread on other conceptual art pieces:

http://www.talkclassical.com/19012-conceptual-art-music-poll.html

The thing is we all have boundaries, but we don't need to impose them on others here. There are boundaries between many things, it is not to say they can't be debated and people can disagree on things which are going to be controversial in the first place. Conceptual art has among its aims to pull down the barriers between genres and in essence put question forward of what is art?

The LIgeti quote I mentioned in my last post on this thread (gave a link to it) says that he doesn't believe that art=life (like Cage and Fluxus do, which he gave as an example). But he does make clear that his opinion might not be shard by everyone.

I have gone to read that quote I remembered by Varese, and he basically says in the interview that he thinks that the restrictions put on music by the more rigorous serialists (he gives Babbit as an example) are not for him. Neither are, on the other hand, the free-for-all chance based things of Cage. Actually, Varese says he respects Cage and said that he did meet him when he was starting out in the 1930's.

He says Cage came across then to him as being an intelligent man. However, Varese says that he doesn't care for the happenings and public spectacles that Cage was doing then, in the 1960's. Varese says that ultimately he cares about making sounds that "disturb the atmosphere." Sonority is his concern, not putting something into some restrictive formula (eg. total serialisation) or letting go totally (eg. like 4'33" and music as art=life).

That's a balanced and middle ground opinion in some respects. But Varese makes clear its his opinion, he is coming from a position of understanding and respect. So have I and others on this thread, including you mmsbls. What's the big deal about that?


----------



## science

scratchgolf said:


> This is a talk forum so I'd say success in such a forum could be based on how much chatter a topic generates.


Ah, then the "modern music sucks" threads really are the most successful!

Sometimes I miss the controversy over HIPPI stuff.


----------



## scratchgolf

science said:


> Ah, then the "modern music sucks" threads really are the most successful!
> 
> Sometimes I miss the controversy over HIPPI stuff.


Sadly yes. Successful in the same way a Miley Cyrus concert is successful. Success and quality do not necessarily go hand in hand. I successfully completed high school :lol::lol::lol:


----------



## Guest

GGluek said:


> There are two parts to the question:
> 
> 1 What is "music" in the larger sense.
> 
> 2 What are the boundaries of music you listen to.


In my eagerness to continue the discussion about Eno, I overlooked this post #10, which deserves greater recognition as the first to make an explicit distinction between the two possible explorations that the OP invited. It's very clear to me now that I was attempting an answer to the second part, but was misunderstood by some as trying to answer the first.

Thanks GGluek.


----------



## Nereffid

mmsbls said:


> No, the problem with the OP is several-fold:
> 
> 1) Mentioning 4'33" polarizes the TC community and often leads to unpleasant exchanges that cause members to feel badly and become less likely to participate. Looking back, I must have been "brain dead" to include 4'33" as an example. A huge mistake. Hopefully I'll never forget that lesson.
> 
> 2) As aleazk clearly explained, setting boundaries in this manner is generally seen as a negative activity. It can easily appear that one is intending to say something bad about certain works rather than simply categorizing them into groups like symphonies, quartets, general works of art, etc. (which of course involve boundaries as well). And in fact, given the opportunity in threads such as these, people do just that.
> 
> 3) As a result of "1" and "2", discussions of topics such as these _*posed in this manner*_ on open forums magnifies the potential for individuals to feed negatively off each other. The resulting discussion often is seen as unpleasant by many members, and the TC community as a whole may suffer.
> 
> The intent was a good one, but the execution was quite poor indeed.


I think your only mistake was in presuming that a polite, honest, measured, and thoughtful post would be responded to in kind! It's abundantly clear from the OP that you had no intention of being negative, and if people choose to read negativity into the OP that's their problem, not yours: you can't be held responsible for deliberate misreading of a clearly written post.

The responses to the mention of Cage remind me of those episodes of _Doctor Who_ where an alien spaceship has crashed, the crew is dead, and the automated systems keep repeating their programming on humans without any understanding of the context. Perhaps TC should have trigger warnings on some threads. I notice that Blancrocher suggested that Bartók's pedagogical works might not be considered music, and not a single pearl was clutched.


----------



## arpeggio

*Twilight Zone*

There was also the classic episode from the _Twilight Zone_ about the crew that kept reenacting the crash of their spaceship.


----------



## KenOC

Without commenting on or even bringing up a certain short piece of certain length purporting to be music, here is an article from the BBC about a poem consisting only of punctuation.

http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-27680904


----------



## Nereffid

KenOC said:


> Without commenting on or even bringing up a certain short piece of certain length purporting to be music, here is an article from the BBC about a poem consisting only of punctuation.
> 
> http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-27680904



:tiphat:


----------



## PetrB

Nereffid said:


> I notice that Blancrocher suggested that Bartók's pedagogical works might not be considered music, and not a single pearl was clutched.


How can one clutch one's pearls (if you are wearing them) if you read something like that and it has you laughing uncontrollably? ... as in...


----------



## mmsbls

KenOC said:


> Without commenting on or even bringing up a certain short piece of certain length purporting to be music, here is an article from the BBC about a poem consisting only of punctuation.
> 
> http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-27680904


I absolutely love the last sentence about students being tempted to write their answer with only punctuation marks.


----------



## Ukko

PetrB said:


> How can one clutch one's pearls (if you are wearing them) if you read something like that and it has you laughing uncontrollably? ... as in...
> View attachment 43413


What the heck _are_ these pedagogical works? All I can think of are the transcriptions of early Baroque Italian music, and the folkmusic... and that stuff is surely music. ?


----------



## EdwardBast

Ukko said:


> What the heck _are_ these pedagogical works? All I can think of are the transcriptions of early Baroque Italian music, and the folkmusic... and that stuff is surely music. ?


I believe it was the first couple of books of _Mikrocosmos_ that were cited (earlier in the thread).


----------



## Ukko

EdwardBast said:


> I believe it was the first couple of books of _Mikrocosmos_ that were cited (earlier in the thread).


Well, that is obviously music, so it must be context or arbitrary qualifiers that I'm missing. Quite a bit of my stuff has gone missing.


----------



## PetrB

Ukko said:


> What the heck _are_ these pedagogical works? All I can think of are the transcriptions of early Baroque Italian music, and the folkmusic... and that stuff is surely music. ?


Certainly the _Microkosmos_ books I - VI, which are also still some of the finest of _musical_ basic pedagogy for learning both music and the piano simultaneously. Since they first were published, they have been praised to the skies.

Many a concert pianist has been started out with them, and many a pedagogue gets tremendous results from beginning players who are taught using the series. IMO they are tremendous and unquestionably 'music.'

As quality music and teaching material, they certainly beat all hell out of those dreadfully unmusical and boring pieces found in far too many pedagogical beginners books, with titles like 'Butterflies in the rain,' etc.

So, yeah, questioning if they qualify as music is beyond far out


----------



## Blancrocher

Nereffid said:


> I notice that Blancrocher suggested that Bartók's pedagogical works might not be considered music, and not a single pearl was clutched.


Thanks a lot, Nereffid, for diligently scouring the archives to retrieve that particular post. I'd thought I'd gotten away with it.


----------



## PetrB

Blancrocher said:


> Thanks a lot, Nereffid, for diligently scouring the archives to retrieve that particular post. I'd thought I'd gotten away with it.


Is Nereffid one of those politician's aides who digs up contrary statements and old dirt on their employer's opponents? 

Time, then, to dig in to Nerefid's old posts... hmmm, what have we _here?_


----------



## ArtMusic

scratchgolf said:


> Not to mention, the topics I create are typically dead within a few days and subsequently buried by threads such as "Mozart vs Hank Williams" and "Have Beethoven Ever Got Boring".


Agree, those types of comments are silly. Mozart and beethoven unquestionably wrote great music, within the boundaries of music, that all on the planet would agree with and connect with. That's the difference,.


----------



## Mahlerian

ArtMusic said:


> Agree, those types of comments are silly. Mozart and beethoven unquestionably wrote great music, within the boundaries of music, that all on the planet would agree with and connect with. That's the difference,.


Tell that to the millions who believe that Mozart and Beethoven are boring and undeniably overrated.


----------



## scratchgolf

Mahlerian said:


> Tell that to the millions who believe that Mozart and Beethoven are boring and undeniably overrated.


I don't even need 999,999 examples of this because I married one of them.


----------



## PetrB

ArtMusic said:


> Agree, those types of comments are silly. Mozart and beethoven unquestionably wrote great music, within the boundaries of music, that all on the planet would agree with and connect with. That's the difference,.


Everyone is a world.


----------



## Svelte Silhouette

I am an island.

I'm not pompous enough to consider myself a world though am definitely an island.

Far away and uninhabitable with a coastline of high and forbidding sea cliffs.


----------



## Blake

You are an island in your own world.


----------



## Svelte Silhouette

Vesuvius said:


> You are an island in your own world.


You sound like my missus

I quickly popped upstairs to make sure she wasn't you as she catastrophically erupts from time to time


----------



## Sid James

scratchgolf said:


> I feel the execution was also very good. We are currently on page 22 so that should count for something. This is a talk forum so I'd say success in such a forum could be based on how much chatter a topic generates. I also find it more beneficial and educational when a topic is polarizing and strong opinions are voiced (within the...um...boundaries of reason and respect). I get a better read on people when these opinions surface, as opposed to a lollypop thread where everyone is basically on the same page. Much like with friendships, you get a true indication of how good your friends are when times are tough and things are at their worst. Learning you have a bad friend can be just as beneficial as learning you have a good friend. And speaking of friends, I made 2 new ones because of this topic. One of them seemed very unlikely at a certain point of the discussion but he made a very kind gesture and went out of his way to assist me in my ever expanding musical experience. For these reasons, I say this topic was and is an absolute success.


I've got the opposite experience to you on these sorts of more controversial (or potentially so) threads, I'm afraid. Maybe its because I've been a member of TC for longer. Early on I did like this kind of verbal parrying but at some point I ended up having a feeling that they where more bad than good. It was due to these threads that I lost my cool and ended up getting infraction points (but I have never been banned). It taught me a lesson, basically to aim at being as unemotional and straightforward as possible when contributing to them (if at all).

However as I said I don't see this thread as a problem. I agree with you that mmsbls did a good job opening the discussion. He didn't exhibit anything that indicates a predetermined agenda, he just wanted a discussion. Again, I got no problems with debates and its good to have one thats got a deal of passion to it. I just don't like when things get personal.

I think its time to accept diversity of opinions on this. As I showed, Varese and Ligeti had views on Cage's music that put it in some conceptual and/or performance art category and I'd add Schoenberg's famous observation about Cage who he taught, _not a composer but an inventor of genius._

I think that Modern music is a broad church, so to speak, it can handle diversity of opinion.


----------



## millionrainbows

Critics often defend the *traditional notion of music *over 'mere visual art' and 'arty ideas' as a *'higher,' more rational construct *which is based on _acoustic_ and _mathematical_ principles, which is largely true as far as tonal music is concerned.

It seems that this is the crucial point of contention with many listeners; that music is somehow more 'rational' and a specialized language unto itself, and when we begin to introduce 'noise' into it, their paradigm begins to disintegrate.

So, it seems that the boundaries of "music" are really one of definition and paradigm, and how far one is willing to push the 'rational' notion of music into the 'irrational' and Dionysian realm of art, poetry, and literature.

Music did not really "open up" to any and all possibilities until later in the 20th century, when it began to be considered in terms of pure sound (and noise) itself. This put it in the same arena with visual art and sculpture, as 'art.'

But ironically, these same 'defenders of music against artiness' can, in the right circumstances, resist and resent the notion that music is a *rational *art, part of the *Greek Quadrivium*, which included astronomy, arithmetic, geometry, and music...such as serial music and modernism, which extrapolate and expand on rational aspects of music as a form of 'audible mathematics.'

So it seems to me to boil down to a question of how much of the 'irrational,' arty, or Dionysian are you willing to allow into music, at the expense of its 'rational' and Apollonian use as a specialized language.

In times past, these two were well-separated, as in opera, where a narrative (poetry, literature, the irrational) was enhanced by music (a rational language, a branch of the quadrivium).

With instrumental music, and the separating of narrative drama from music, it seems that music is more and more susceptible to being divorced from its original acoustic and rational qualities, to be experienced as 'sound only,' which opens the Pandora's box of possibilities.

I don't see this issue as a controversy; I see it as a shift of emphasis, which tends to make some people dizzy, and they begin frantically grasping at the handrail of their paradigm.

I think this is most people's problem with Cage, although they can't define it; his goals were not really 'musical' in any traditional sense, in terms of expanding or elaborating on an existing syntax or language of musical thought. He sought to 'deconstruct' the notion of music as a rational language, and introduce the 'irrational' and chance elements into it, redefining it as 'simply sound.'

In this sense, Cage was, indeed, 'anti-music,' in that he was using the traditional tools of music (pianos, voices, orchestras) in order to subvert it 'from within.'

Yet, he was an artist whose medium was sound. I think many people wouls have been happier if he's called himself an artist rather than a composer or musician.


----------



## Mahlerian

Here's Takemitsu on Cage:
"Cage shook the foundations of Western music and, with almost naive clarity, he evoked silence as the mother of sound. Through John Cage, sound gained its freedom.[...]His ideas have been compared to Dadaism, which may not be too far off, but there are differences. His dismantling, while similar to that of Dada, is not simple negativism. For that reason his influence continues to have future possibilities.
[...]
The silent piece 4'33", premiered in 1952, has already become a legend. There are those stubborn people who do not recognize Cage as a composer of music, but only of philosophic gestures. But as we observe the works that followed, his music is no less individual than that of other composers. He is, in fact, unique."


----------



## Morimur

Mahlerian said:


> Here's Takemitsu on Cage:
> "Cage shook the foundations of Western music and, with almost naive clarity, he evoked silence as the mother of sound. Through John Cage, sound gained its freedom.[...]His ideas have been compared to Dadaism, which may not be too far off, but there are differences. His dismantling, while similar to that of Dada, is not simple negativism. For that reason his influence continues to have future possibilities.
> [...]
> The silent piece 4'33", premiered in 1952, has already become a legend. There are those stubborn people who do not recognize Cage as a composer of music, but only of philosophic gestures. But as we observe the works that followed, his music is no less individual than that of other composers. He is, in fact, unique."


Interesting quote. I enjoy Takemitsu's work so I'll give Cage another listen.


----------



## Guest

Pretty well nailed it there, that Takemitsu guy.

Not that he adds anything to anything that million has already said. But it's probably good to get corroboration from outside the forum.


----------



## Marschallin Blair

Mahlerian said:


> Here's Takemitsu on Cage:
> "Cage shook the foundations of Western music and, with almost naive clarity, he evoked silence as the mother of sound. Through John Cage, sound gained its freedom.[...]His ideas have been compared to Dadaism, which may not be too far off, but there are differences. His dismantling, while similar to that of Dada, is not simple negativism. For that reason his influence continues to have future possibilities.
> [...]
> The silent piece 4'33", premiered in 1952, has already become a legend. There are those stubborn people who do not recognize Cage as a composer of music, but only of philosophic gestures. But as we observe the works that followed, his music is no less individual than that of other composers. He is, in fact, unique."


How do you do that?-- by means of_ non_-existence? . . .

Nothing will come of nothing. Speak again, Cordelia.

(I am of course addressing His Eminence, Toru Takemitsu, and not Mahlerian. Ha. Ha. Ha.)


----------



## KenOC

Here's Boulez on Cage: "He was refreshing but not very bright. His freshness came from an absence of knowledge." But then, that's Pierre for you!


----------



## Morimur

KenOC said:


> Here's Boulez on Cage: "He was refreshing but not very bright. His freshness came from an absence of knowledge." But then, that's Pierre for you!


Young Boulez sure had an acid tongue.


----------



## Marschallin Blair

Lope de Aguirre said:


> Young Boulez sure had an acid tongue.


-- which goes hand-in-hand with having _no_ taste.

He once said that Schoenberg is dead.

If that's so, then is Boulez' music by comparison '_stillborn_'?


----------



## KenOC

Lope de Aguirre said:


> Young Boulez sure had an acid tongue.


Cage and Boulez were friends at an earlier point. BTW Cage is supposed to have said, "When I see Pierre, I see a bad animal."


----------



## Guest

Marschallin Blair said:


> Nothing will come of nothing.


I wonder, I really do, how many times we will have to point out that "silence" is not equivalent to "nothing." More like equivalent to "everything." How many times before it catches on? And we no longer need to say it.

Soon, I hope.


----------



## Guest

KenOC said:


> is supposed to have said


Nope. Not good enough, Ken. Not enough to simply claim something to make it so. (And the hedge is not thick enough to hide the fact.)

We want another attribution besides your own. Chapter and verse. Remember, I knew Cage, however slightly, and this thing that you are sort of claiming he said (plausible deniability, eh?) is possible but not probable.


----------



## PetrB

Well to wrap it up (anyone is free to go on and on ad infinitum in this thread, of course), "We" have figured out:

*The only "boundary" music itself has is what is physically possible to produce*,

while statement after statement in the thread corroborates that

*people have many different ideas of what music is, and often enough, outside an individual's idea of what music is, other extant musics are something that individual has a near impossible time getting their head around *


----------



## Marschallin Blair

some guy said:


> I wonder, I really do, how many times we will have to point out that "silence" is not equivalent to "nothing." More like equivalent to "everything." How many times before it catches on? And we no longer need to say it.
> 
> Soon, I hope.


But isn't just sitting at the keyboard doing_ nothing _for the _duration _of the piece,_ nothing_; and not just _silence_?

Or are Cage's followers too wise and Shakespeare too dim?

Keep wondering.


----------



## KenOC

some guy said:


> Nope. Not good enough, Ken. Not enough to simply claim something to make it so. (And the hedge is not thick enough to hide the fact.)
> 
> We want another attribution besides your own. Chapter and verse. Remember, I knew Cage, however slightly, and this thing that you are sort of claiming he said (plausible deniability, eh?) is possible but not probable.


Only hedge I've got. "Supposed to have said" is quite accurate. First note on this page:

http://pervegalit.wordpress.com/2010/04/16/john-cage-and-rahsaan-roland-kirk-sound-1966/


----------



## SONNET CLV

KenOC said:


> Here's Boulez on Cage: "He was refreshing but not very bright. His freshness came from an absence of knowledge." But then, that's Pierre for you!


But could Pierre pick a wild mushroom, and then consume it and live?

As one who pursues the wild _Armillaria mellea_ and other indigenous fungi in North America, I'll take Cage's side against the snail eater.


----------



## KenOC

SONNET CLV said:


> But could Pierre pick a wild mushroom, and then consume it and live?
> 
> As one who pursues the wild _Armillaria mellea_ and other indigenous fungi in North America, I'll take Cage's side against the snail eater.
> 
> View attachment 43986


Still, have a care! Remember the sad end of the composer Johann Schobert, friend of the Mozart family. "Schobert died in Paris, along with his wife, one of their children, a maidservant and four acquaintances, after insisting that certain poisonous mushrooms were edible."

But Pierre may have his own problems. Are there poisonous snails? I know for a fact that there are poisonous frogs...


----------



## Morimur

Marschallin Blair said:


> -- which goes hand-in-hand with having _no_ taste.
> 
> He once said that Schoenberg is dead.
> 
> If that's so, then is Boulez' music by comparison '_stillborn_'?


I am amused by Boulez's unrestrained contemptuousness. It's almost cartoonish. I do love his music, though.


----------



## Marschallin Blair

> Originally Posted by Marschallin Blair
> 
> -- which goes hand-in-hand with having no taste.
> 
> He once said that Schoenberg is dead.
> 
> Lope de Aguirre: If that's so, then is Boulez' music by comparison 'stillborn'?
> 
> I am amused by Boulez's unrestrained contemptuousness. It's almost cartoonish. I do love his music, though.


--
It's amusing. . . in a hideous-sort-of-way; since though there's no excuse for pre-emptive rudeness. . .

But as an artist?

Sure.

I think Boulez is a brilliant clinician with the orchestra; and some of his pieces are outstanding-sounding as well.

I just revel in the fact that the_ avant-garde _can make fun of the avant-garde-- like Boulez gratuitously insulting Schoenberg for instance; but if someone who is _not_ an avant-gardist _criticizes_ an avant-gardist, then its just so unsupercalifragilisticexpialidocious; claws come out, fangs start to show.


----------



## Headphone Hermit

Marschallin Blair said:


> --
> if someone who is _not_ an avant-gardist _criticizes_ an avant-gardist, then its just so unsupercalifragilisticexpialidocious; claws come out, fangs start to show.


its like eating Pringles - you know it does you no good and leaves everyone feeling dissatisfied, but they still get eaten if opened. Far better to leave well alone .... in both directions!


----------



## KenOC

Musicians have been sniping at each other for a long time. Beethoven: "The Bohemians are born musicians. The Italians ought to take them as models. What have they to show for their famous conservatories? Behold! their idol, Rossini! If Dame Fortune had not given him a pretty talent and amiable melodies by the bushel, what he learned at school would have brought him nothing but potatoes for his big belly."


----------



## Guest

PetrB said:


> Well to wrap it up (anyone is free to go on and on ad infinitum in this thread, of course), "We" have figured out:
> 
> *The only "boundary" music itself has is what is physically possible *to produce


Not sure who the "we" is, but you can include me out of that particular figuring. ;-)


----------



## PetrB

Marschallin Blair said:


> But isn't just sitting at the keyboard doing_ nothing _for the _duration _of the piece,_ nothing_; and not just _silence_?
> 
> Or are Cage's followers too wise and Shakespeare too dim?
> 
> Keep wondering.


Lord. For the ___th time: _This piece must be performed in front of an audience to mean anything._ 
Then, and ask a concert performer, it can be as harrowing as being expected to perform a highly pyrotechnical work ~ the performer must still make a performance, command the hall, direct the audience. The result, through its three movements of designated length, the performer to somehow indicate one movement is finished and another starting, is the audience becoming increasingly aware of the sounds around them not emanating from the instrument the performer has. (I've just thought, a vocalist might have more trouble with pulling this off than anyone else.)

So that is far from 'doing nothing,' and it all has 'nothing' to do with finely tweaked semantic twists. It is all pretty direct, non-puzzling (I hope) and matter of fact.


----------



## PetrB

MacLeod said:


> Not sure who the "we" is, but you can include me out of that particular figuring. ;-)


If you want to cop out of being one part of the collective consciousness of TC, that's your right


----------



## mmsbls

PetrB said:


> "We" have figured out:
> 
> *The only "boundary" music itself has is what is physically possible to produce*,


Do you mean the only "boundary" music itself has is what (sound) is physically possible to produce? And produced by anything? Without any consciousness playing a role? I'm not really sure what you mean by the above.



PetrB said:


> while statement after statement in the thread corroborates that
> 
> *people have many different ideas of what music is, and often enough, outside an individual's idea of what music is, other extant musics are something that individual has a near impossible time getting their head around *


Yes, I think people do have many different ideas of what music is. To me that's interesting - hence the thread.



PetrB said:


> _This piece must be performed in front of an audience to mean anything._


What happens when performer(s) rehearse 4'33"? Does it have meaning then? I suppose the audience could be the performer(s). Does it matter if there is no audience?


----------



## Woodduck

PetrB said:


> Lord. For the ___th time: _This piece must be performed in front of an audience to mean anything._
> Then, and ask a concert performer, it can be as harrowing as being expected to perform a highly pyrotechnical work ~ the performer must still make a performance, command the hall, direct the audience. The result, through its three movements of designated length, the performer to somehow indicate one movement is finished and another starting, is the audience becoming increasingly aware of the sounds around them not emanating from the instrument the performer has. (I've just thought, a vocalist might have more trouble with pulling this off than anyone else.)
> 
> So that is far from 'doing nothing,' and it all has 'nothing' to do with finely tweaked semantic twists. It is all pretty direct, non-puzzling (I hope) and matter of fact.


I just can't resist suggesting that if a performance of this "thing" (taking no position now as to what it should be called) were to take place as you describe it here, with the performer making a "harrowing" effort to "command the hall" and indicating with silent gestures the beginnings and endings of the "movements" of a thing in which nothing moves, then one of the sounds "not emanating from the instrument" which the audience would become "increasingly aware of" might be laughter.

Intending no disrespect, truly - but I laughed just reading your description. I suspect only politeness would keep me from cracking up at the actual event.

I'll now don my cravat and stovepipe hat. I have a carriage to catch.


----------



## Woodduck

some guy said:


> I wonder, I really do, how many times we will have to point out that "silence" is not equivalent to "nothing." More like equivalent to "everything."


For all practical purposes "everything" _is_ "nothing." Only "something" really gives us "anything" to see, hear, taste, smell, touch, feel, think, or do - or gives us words ending in "thing."


----------



## Marschallin Blair

PetrB said:


> Lord. For the ___th time: _This piece must be performed in front of an audience to mean anything._
> Then, and ask a concert performer, it can be as harrowing as being expected to perform a highly pyrotechnical work ~ the performer must still make a performance, command the hall, direct the audience. The result, through its three movements of designated length, the performer to somehow indicate one movement is finished and another starting, is the audience becoming increasingly aware of the sounds around them not emanating from the instrument the performer has. (I've just thought, a vocalist might have more trouble with pulling this off than anyone else.)
> 
> So that is far from 'doing nothing,' and it all has 'nothing' to do with finely tweaked semantic twists. It is all pretty direct, non-puzzling (I hope) and matter of fact.


--
_I_ was talking about the Clothes-Have-No-Emperor piece "_4'33_". . . what are _you_ talking about?


----------



## KenOC

Marschallin Blair said:


> --
> _I_ was talking about the Clothes-Have-No-Emperor piece "_4'33_". . . what are _you_ talking about?


I'll be in the bunker and will come out when the radioactivity drops to a safe level. Meanwhile, please put a six-pack of Beck's down into the air filter area daily, thanks!


----------



## Sid James

Marschallin Blair said:


> ...
> I just revel in the fact that the_ avant-garde _can make fun of the avant-garde-- like Boulez gratuitously insulting Schoenberg for instance; but if someone who is _not_ an avant-gardist _criticizes_ an avant-gardist, then its just so unsupercalifragilisticexpialidocious; claws come out, fangs start to show.


Yes, there has been a tendency to look at not what a person is saying, but who is saying it.


----------



## Woodduck

mmsbls said:


> What happens when performer(s) rehearse 4'33"? Does it have meaning then? I suppose the audience could be the performer(s). Does it matter if there is no audience?


I am making a terrific effort _not_ to envision a rehearsal of 4'33." If this effort fails I'm afraid my head will blow up.


----------



## science

So basically this whole thread comes down to whether one idea of Cage's is officially "music" or not. 

That's too bad because there are other boundary cases that are less boring.


----------



## Nereffid

PetrB said:


> Well to wrap it up (anyone is free to go on and on ad infinitum in this thread, of course), "We" have figured out:
> 
> *The only "boundary" music itself has is what is physically possible to produce*,
> 
> while statement after statement in the thread corroborates that
> 
> *people have many different ideas of what music is, and often enough, outside an individual's idea of what music is, other extant musics are something that individual has a near impossible time getting their head around *


I'd change your latter to:

People have many different ideas of what music is, and often enough, outside an individual's idea of what music is, other individuals' ideas of music are something that an individual has a near impossible time getting their head around.

(For the individual, surely by definition there _can't_ be "other extant musics" outside of their own idea of music)


----------



## Guest

The naysayers will continue to say "Nay" in two or three very predictable ways.

The yeasayers will continue to love what is obviously lovable.

The yeasayers will perhaps decide at some point that defending what the naysayers seem only capable of mocking is probably not worth the possibility of converting another mmsbls.

We have reached the point where defense is being portrayed as offense, which is probably a good point to leave the fray. It's a strange twist of reality when we talk about teeth coming out only after (_after_) people react to having been bitten. (Or, to anticipate a predictable response, only after people react to something (anything) being bitten.)


----------



## PetrB

mmsbls said:


> Do you mean the only "boundary" music itself has is what (sound) is physically possible to produce? And produced by anything? Without any consciousness playing a role? I'm not really sure what you mean by the above.


I can not believe some would like it spelled out each time... of course an audience is implicit.



mmsbls said:


> What happens when performer(s) rehearse 4'33"? Does it have meaning then? I suppose the audience could be the performer(s). Does it matter if there is no audience?


Same thing that happens when performer(s) rehearse any other piece -- its a rehearsal, a piece not existing until it is happening live, with an audience. Yes, you could even record 4'33'' but the listener at home may forget that it is meant for the convention of a hall where music is played and with an attendant audience.


----------



## PetrB

Nereffid said:


> I'd change your latter to:
> 
> People have many different ideas of what music is, and often enough, outside an individual's idea of what music is, other individuals' ideas of music are something that an individual has a near impossible time getting their head around.
> 
> (For the individual, surely by definition there _can't_ be "other extant musics" outside of their own idea of music)


And after that, let's organize all the saved paper bags stored between the refrigerator and the counter by size!


----------



## ptr

mmsbls said:


> What happens when performer(s) rehearse 4'33"? Does it have meaning then? I suppose the audience could be the performer(s).


Yes it does, It is simply the Zen of music, You sit down with Your instrument intake the environment for the duration of the piece!



> Does it matter if there is no audience?


Not really, but it makes it more interesting, for me, 4'33 is all about being in tune with and being one with Your environment, I do understand that this may well be a lost art for the modern stressed human! All in all 4'33 is just Cage's take on Pythagoras Harmony of the Spheres, just that Cage focuses on the Micro Cosmos of the Performing space rather than the Cosmic of the Cosmos!

/ptr


----------



## Marschallin Blair

> mmsbls:Originally Posted by PetrB This piece must be performed in front of an audience to mean anything.
> 
> What happens when performer(s) rehearse 4'33"? Does it have meaning then? I suppose the audience could be the performer(s). Does it matter if there is no audience?


You owe me a cup of coffee, mmsbls. I just lost it over my computer screen reading you post. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. . . Totally great post.


----------



## Marschallin Blair

KenOC said:


> I'll be in the bunker and will come out when the radioactivity drops to a safe level. Meanwhile, please put a six-pack of Beck's down into the air filter area daily, thanks!


"Roger Wilco. That's a big 10-4 on that."


----------



## Marschallin Blair

> Originally Posted by Marschallin Blair
> ...
> I just revel in the fact that the avant-garde can make fun of the avant-garde-- like Boulez gratuitously insulting Schoenberg for instance; but if someone who is not an avant-gardist criticizes an avant-gardist, then its just so unsupercalifragilisticexpialidocious; claws come out, fangs start to show.
> 
> Sid James: Yes, there has been a tendency to look at not what a person is saying, but who is saying it.


'Argument' not 'provenance.'

<Ping.>


----------



## Marschallin Blair

> some guy: It's a strange twist of reality when we talk about teeth coming out only after (after) people react to having been bitten.


How can one assume the teeth were large enough to bite with in the first place?


----------



## Headphone Hermit

..... and that is why Pringles continue to sell - "one is just not enough!" :lol:


----------



## science

I hope I'm not the only one who sometimes rehearses 4'33" in the shower.


----------



## PetrB

science said:


> I hope I'm not the only one who sometimes rehearses 4'33" in the shower.


as long as you don't record it, or heav'n forfend, make a video with audio, and post either on Youtube, etc. I'm fine with that, the world is probably fine with that. Good to know you keep clean


----------



## science

PetrB said:


> as long as you don't record it, or heav'n forfend, make a video with audio, and post either on Youtube, etc. I'm fine with that, the world is probably fine with that. Good to know you keep clean


Have you seen how many 4'33" videos there are on youtube?


----------



## Woodduck

science said:


> I hope I'm not the only one who sometimes rehearses 4'33" in the shower.


You too? I've been doing that ever since I got old and my voice gave out. It's difficult, though, to stop performing when the piece is over, as I've barely had time to get wet and lather once. At that point my dilemma is whether to prolong the piece by adding movements, which of course changes Cage's carefully balanced formal design, or to improvise another work in the same idiom, which feels like plagiarism. Showers are not supposed to make one feel guilty. Oh, I wish I could still sing!


----------



## Guest

Marschallin Blair said:


> How can one assume the teeth were large enough to bite with in the first place?


Of course we have pretty well established that the only people with teeth and claws are the pro-modernists. The anti-modernists are all nice and sweet and innocently going about their business--minding their own business--when suddenly this hideous modern noise erupts into their lives, disrupting their quiet, inoffensive enjoyment of real music. There's no escape from it! It's everywhere!! We're not sure if it's offensive because it's so loud or because it's so soft, because it's so repetitious or because it's not repetitious at all, but it's gross, that's for sure. Gross and invasive. You can't turn the radio on without hearing _4'33"_ any more. You can't go to a symphony concert without being assaulted with interminable pieces by Lachenmann and Xenakis. Life just isn't worth living any more.

And the pro-modernists! Why, they're even worse than the music. Have you seen the teeth on those suckers? And the claws? Always ripping and tearing.

We just want some nice, quiet Beethoven or Tchaikovsky. But everywhere we turn, there's some silent piece or other to disturb the Sabbath calm of our ordinary lives.


----------



## millionrainbows

KenOC said:


> Here's Boulez on Cage: "He was refreshing but not very bright. His freshness came from an absence of knowledge." But then, that's Pierre for you!


I don't think Pierre quite got the idea of 'emptiness.' When D.T. Suzuki walked into Cage's near-empty studio in NY, he said "An old shoe would look beautiful in here."













Lest anyone get the wrong idea that Cage was "stupid" because of some off-the-wall statement which was carefully tracked-down and reproduced, and used as an oblique disparagement (appeal to authority), look at this book.

_(Breathe deeply..calm...No, I'm not crazy or stupid, John Cage was an important composer, I have his music on numerous CDs...I wonder if those Beethoven snobs have to do this, too?)_


----------



## millionrainbows

Marschallin Blair said:


> But isn't just sitting at the keyboard doing_ nothing _for the _duration _of the piece,_ nothing_; and not just _silence_?
> 
> Or are Cage's followers too wise and Shakespeare too dim?
> 
> Keep wondering.


Marschallin, if you'd get an old, used, cheap copy of Silence or of this anthology, you wouldn't have to ask these embarrassing questions. I reproduce images of these books here, in order to reassure myself that I'm not some kind of 'outsider.' These ideas have all been thoroughly explored. leave the philosophical quandaries to the experts, who have already solved them.


----------



## PetrB

Marschallin Blair said:


> How can one assume the teeth were large enough to bite with in the first place?


Virtual bites from virtual teeth mean virtual wounds -- not a band-aid nor sympathy required


----------



## Marschallin Blair

> Originally Posted by Marschallin Blair
> But isn't just sitting at the keyboard doing nothing for the duration of the piece, nothing; and not just silence?
> 
> Or are Cage's followers too wise and Shakespeare too dim?
> 
> Keep wondering.
> 
> millionrainbows: Marschallin, if you'd get an old, used, cheap copy of Silence or of this anthology, you wouldn't have to ask these embarrassing questions. I reproduce images of these books here, in order to reassure myself that I'm not some kind of 'outsider.' These ideas have all been thoroughly explored. leave the philosophical quandaries to the experts, who have already solved them.


But of course, Darling.

Then again, I'm merely lending Cage a sort of existential courtesy to begin with.

I don't decry Cage. I praise him; perhaps excessively-- since his clothes have no emperor.


----------



## Marschallin Blair

PetrB said:


> Virtual bites from virtual teeth mean virtual wounds -- not a band-aid nor sympathy required


You are too kind.

Cheers.

<Clink.>


----------



## millionrainbows

Originally Posted by *PetrB*  *This piece must be performed in front of an audience to mean anything. 
*


mmsbls said:


> What happens when performer(s) rehearse 4'33"? Does it have meaning then?


No, your question tells me that you miss the point by trying to make 4'33" fit within a normal parameter like other music.

What PetrB is trying to say is that 4'33" is a performance piece, not an 'musical entity' or 'object' which was composed as a 'separate musical object', or which can be recorded, or as an 'idea' that can be played with philosophically.

*4'33" is the specific occurrence of whatever sounds take place within the time-frame of four minutes and thirty-three seconds, in that exact performance, at that exact time.

*You cannot 'rehearse' a segment of 'now.'



mmsbls said:


> I suppose the audience could be the performer(s).


Once again, you are not showing a basic grasp of the piece. There is no 'performer' in the piece, except as a residual trapping of the concert hall environment, which is part of what Cage was saying with this piece: We can listen to sound all around us, all the time, as if it were "music" and a performance.



mmsbls said:


> Does it matter if there is no audience?


Yes; I'm sure Cage wanted to communicate this idea to an audience; otherwise he would never have bothered to publish it or have it performed.


----------



## millionrainbows

To all concerned:

IMHO, this thread and some of the responses I'm seeing are becoming skewed in the direction of subtle jokes and oblique disparagements of John Cage. If you don't understand the piece, or his music, then please stop asking these simplistic questions, which are becoming, in their net effect, a 'pile-on' to people who like and respect Cage and his output.

Go listen to Mozart and look up what* he *said about silence.


----------



## Marschallin Blair

millionrainbows said:


> To all concerned:
> 
> IMHO, this thread and some of the responses I'm seeing are becoming skewed in the direction of subtle jokes and oblique disparagements of John Cage. If you don't understand the piece, or his music, then please stop asking these simplistic questions, which are becoming, in their net effect, a 'pile-on' to people who like and respect Cage and his output.
> 
> Go listen to Mozart and look up what* he *said about silence.


---
"Bad Blair. First hair-do detention; now this. To the corner! _Go!_"

_;D_


----------



## PetrB

Marschallin Blair said:


> But of course, Darling.
> 
> Then again, I'm merely lending Cage a sort of existential courtesy to begin with.
> 
> I don't decry Cage. I praise him; perhaps excessively-- since his clothes have no emperor.


To fixate on 4'33'' I liken to fixating upon the least memorable bagatelle by Beethoven while ignoring the rest of his oeuvre. It is all too facile, glib and lazy (tsk, tsk!)

If any would care to remedy that ~ 
The Emperor -- _is_ clothed....
John Cage ~ _The Seasons_, for orchestra ("John Cage 100," Victoria Symphony, Tania Miller, conductor _Caution! Woman Driver_ :lol:
Winter; Spring, Summer, Fall.
(Surprise yourselves - try all of _The Seasons, _ or just _Summer_,)
















or these two well-known piano pieces:
_In a landscape_




_Dream_





and a really fine piece for percussion ensemble...
_Third Construction_





Real Composer, Real Clothes.

Best regards.


----------



## science

Well, you've got to let people have their jokes, and if they can't think of new ones, let them enjoy the old ones.



science said:


> No one has ever made a joke about Cage's 4'33" before, so if you do, she'll definitely think you're clever. You should probably make several jokes about that, actually.


----------



## Woodduck

millionrainbows said:


> Go listen to Mozart and look up what* he *said about silence.


"The music is not in the notes but in the silence between." - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart


----------



## millionrainbows

Hey, it's no joke. But then again, why was John Cage always laughing? He obviously knew something funny was going on. I'll stop being such a control-freak, and I'll even join-in the festivities:

JOHN CAGE WAS A POOPY-HEAD!


----------



## ptr

millionrainbows said:


> JOHN CAGE WAS A POOPY-HEAD!


Really? Thought he was a mycology geek!

/otr


----------



## mmsbls

PetrB said:


> *The only "boundary" music itself has is what is physically possible to produce*,





mmsbls said:


> Do you mean the only "boundary" music itself has is what (sound) is physically possible to produce? And produced by anything? Without any consciousness playing a role? I'm not really sure what you mean by the above.





PetrB said:


> I can not believe some would like it spelled out each time... of course an audience is implicit.


It's possible this reply was mistakenly posted to my quote, but if not, I don't understand. My questions have nothing to do with audiences. I was just asking if you meant to include sound in your statement on music and if anything could produce music including non-living or non-conscious things.



PetrB said:


> Same thing that happens when performer(s) rehearse any other piece -- its a rehearsal, a piece not existing until it is happening live, with an audience. Yes, you could even record 4'33'' but the listener at home may forget that it is meant for the convention of a hall where music is played and with an attendant audience.


When someone plays or rehearses a piece on the piano for themselves, isn't it a work of art that exists? Why would a rehearsal of 4'33" be different from rehearsing another piece?


----------



## Blake

mmsbls said:


> When someone plays or rehearses a piece on the piano for themselves, isn't it a work of art that exists? Why would a rehearsal of 4'33" be different from rehearsing another piece?


I would think the composer is also the listener. So, I'd consider it art the very moment the artist hears it. A big outside audience isn't required for something to be considered art. Only one is needed.


----------



## KenOC

mmsbls said:


> Why would a rehearsal of 4'33" be different from rehearsing another piece?


Uh...takes a lot more run-throughs to get it right? No, that probably isn't it.


----------



## SONNET CLV

millionrainbows said:


> Hey, it's no joke. But then again, *why was John Cage always laughing?* He obviously knew something funny was going on.


Perhaps John Cage was born with the wisdom Beethoven seemed to acquire only late in life. Beethoven's final quartet poses three stark movements of troubled music. Then, at the opening of the fourth movement, Beethoven writes on the score "Muß es sein?" (Must it be?) to which he responds, with the main theme of the movement as the answer, "Es muß sein!" (It must be!). That main theme and the final movement is one of the most joyous examples of music ever penned -- it is laughter in sound. Beethoven tells us, with this very late work, that if we cannot learn to laugh we are missing the very point of life.

I suspect Cage never missed the point of life. He seems to be on the same page as Gratiano, one of Shakespeare's characters from _The Merchant of Venice_, who remarks "With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come." You might wish to argue with Cage, but I would hope you'd have better sense than to argue with the Bard.


----------



## Marschallin Blair

PetrB said:


> To fixate on 4'33'' I liken to fixating upon the least memorable bagatelle by Beethoven while ignoring the rest of his oeuvre. It is all too facile, glib and lazy (tsk, tsk!)
> 
> If any would care to remedy that ~
> The Emperor -- _is_ clothed....
> John Cage ~ _The Seasons_, for orchestra ("John Cage 100," Victoria Symphony, Tania Miller, conductor _Caution! Woman Driver_ :lol:
> Winter; Spring, Summer, Fall.
> (Surprise yourselves - try all of _The Seasons, _ or just _Summer_,)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> or these two well-known piano pieces:
> _In a landscape_
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _Dream_
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> and a really fine piece for percussion ensemble...
> _Third Construction_
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Real Composer, Real Clothes.
> 
> Best regards.


--
I stand humbled, as you attribute views to me I don't hold on works I've never talked about.

I kiss your hand repeatedly.


----------



## Woodduck

mmsbls said:


> When someone plays or rehearses a piece on the piano for themselves, isn't it a work of art that exists? Why would a rehearsal of 4'33" be different from rehearsing another piece?


The answer to your second question is found in your first. 4'33" is not played on the piano. It is "played" by anything and everything else within earshot - in other words, by the environment. The environment cannot rehearse - but it doesn't need to in any case, since it cannot give a poor performance or earn a bad review.


----------



## PetrB

mmsbls said:


> My questions have nothing to do with audiences.


Then you will miss the crucial pith of music and performance -- especially if fathoming 4'33''

With a piece so specific about its being performed, as Million Rainbows has already neatly explained, Cage's 4'33'' is inherently _a performance piece,_ which is nothing unless it is being performed in front of an audience. *I would say this is a true 'philosophical statement' about anything made which is meant to be performed.* -- it brings to mind that fundamental (Zen koan 101a?) question of "If a tree falls in the woods, and there is no one to hear it...."

Cage had thought about a piece of this nature for some time, and was impelled by his experiences attending the rounds of avant-garde programs in Manhattan when he finally decided to write the piece. The piece is intended with a specific effect just as any other artist hopes to make works with a specific effect. The piece _very much depended upon the audience not knowing anything about it,_ so anyone today who knows of it in advance is already at a disadvantage about what could be had from first hearing it in the "formal" setting of an announced program to be played in a hall. _One factor which spurred Cage on was a particular set of audience members who seemed to him to be showing up at nearly all the avant-garde recitals yet were completely non-discerning as to what they were hearing... in short, hipsters of the era who were attending more out of an interest in sensationalism and their self-interest logging in attendance hours to those events to add to their credentials of just how completely hip they were!_ The piece was meant for everyone, but it was partially aimed at that particular cadre of poseurs who Cage had in mind, perhaps his gleefully anticipating that premiere of 4'33'' might be near the first time those sensationalist hipsters had bothered at all to think about what they were hearing. 



mmsbls said:


> I was just asking if you meant to include sound in your statement on music and if anything could produce music including non-living or non-conscious things.


Sound is the predominant, being over time, some silence is almost always part of it, and *no, unless it is generated by people, electronic or acoustic, other sounds heard (those occurring in nature or, say, a composite of a number of machines in operation) might be perceived as musical, but are outside the conventions of what almost everyone considers "music."* "The music of nature" is but a poetic _conceit._



mmsbls said:


> When someone plays or rehearses a piece on the piano for themselves, isn't it a work of art that exists? Would a rehearsal of 4'33" be different from rehearsing another piece?


No, but with its extraordinary nature and requirements, the person practicing 4'33'' on their own would do well to watch themselves in a mirror (or video the session and review it) and think on the sounds in the space they are in... because that is clearly part of the piece, and a good musician learns all of a piece including, best they can, the nature of that piece. Without that, the performer would have no point of view to project, and that performance would pall.

Performance of any piece is not simply rendering the score; that score needs, nay, _commands_, that the performer _ projects intent / point of view_ like mad, and _that is a requisite dimension of performing in addition to 'just playing.' _

Ask any performer: Practicing can never give you the practice or experience of performing in front of a live audience, never. Performing -- whether it starts with a first experience in a teacher's student recital or is a later required performance in recitals in music schools or performing at the professional level -- is always an initial trial by fire. Apart from command of your instrument, a performer has to learn to also _take command of the stage and the audience from the moment they walk out on to that stage._ (That works best if that is 'turned on' prior walking out) That ability is not a unique requirement of music, but any performance. That can only be 'practiced' in the doing.


----------



## hpowders

The boundaries: Up to my ceiling and down to my floor. Used to get banged down and up from my unappreciative neighbors living directly below and above me.

So I wised up and bought a house.


----------



## KenOC

Woodduck said:


> ...since it cannot give a poor performance or earn a bad review.


Can't earn a bad review? What if one of the "players" accidently tootles the instrument? What then? What if a cheap watch cuts the performance to 4'18"? Can the audience demand a partial refund? What if it is performed more generously, to five or six minutes? Could premium prices be charged for tickets?

These are all mysteries.


----------



## PetrB

Marschallin Blair said:


> --
> I stand humbled, as you attribute views to me I don't hold on works I've never talked about.
> 
> I kiss your hand repeatedly.


I think we find each the other with an admired sense of humor, and too I think each of us sometimes mistakes what was said in jest by the other. So, madame, it seems I owe you one, or two. 

Best regards.


----------



## PetrB

hpowders said:


> The boundaries: Up to my ceiling and down to my floor. Used to get banged down and up from my unappreciative neighbors living directly below and above me.
> 
> So I wised up and bought a house.


You lived in a pole barn before you bought that house?


----------



## PetrB

KenOC said:


> Can't earn a bad review? What if it is performed more generously, to five or six minutes?


Critics and audiences would be bound to disapprove of the performer's choice of tempo.

Negative reviews all 'round :tiphat:


----------



## mmsbls

@PetrB: Thank you for your considered answers to my questions in post #408. I actually do know a reasonable amount about 4'33" having read some of Cage's thoughts on it as well as many others including those on TC, but I can always learn to think about it slightly differently or perhaps more completely. I think I agree with basically everything you say in that post, and I do like these thoughts:



PetrB said:


> Sound is the predominant, being over time, some silence is almost always part of it, and *no, unless it is generated by people, electronic or acoustic, other sounds heard (those occurring in nature or, say, a composite of a number of machines in operation) might be perceived as musical, but are outside the conventions of what almost everyone considers "music."* "The music of nature" is but a poetic _conceit._


I've always had mixed feelings about the following:



PetrB said:


> The piece _very much depended upon the audience not knowing anything about it,_ so anyone today who knows of it in advance is already at a disadvantage about what could be had from first hearing it in the "formal" setting of an announced program to be played in a hall.


My sense was that the vast majority of people would not understand the "purpose" of the work and would tend to dismiss it as "silly theater". Obviously many do that even after knowing something about it. On the other hand, if they were taught something about the work before the performance, they could properly focus their attention on what Cage intended and maybe understand better what they might completely miss otherwise. Do you know if Cage felt it was important that listeners knew nothing about the work?


----------



## mmsbls

millionrainbows said:


> IMHO, this thread and some of the responses I'm seeing are becoming skewed in the direction of subtle jokes and oblique disparagements of John Cage. If you don't understand the piece, or his music, then please stop asking these simplistic questions, which are becoming, in their net effect, a 'pile-on' to people who like and respect Cage and his output.


I strongly disagree. If you don't understand the piece, or his music, then please _*DO*_ ask questions whether simplistic or not. That's one of the major points to this forum. This forum is absolutely not just for those who understand or have significant experience with music. It is for all who enjoy classical music, and if some of those _want to understand something better_, please *ALWAYS* feel free to ask. ALWAYS. I simply can't emphasize that enough. It's a critically important aspect of this forum. That's my view.

Now, I do understand that some feel that certain questions were not meant seriously. Perhaps. I would prefer that no one belittle any composer or work (or anyone actually). I can't speak for everyone else, but I know that many questions asked in the last few pages were very serious. It may not always be easy to tell the difference between a serious questions and one meant as a joke so I also assume some of those questions were misunderstood. That's not unusual on the internet or even in person.


----------



## Woodduck

PetrB said:


> To fixate on 4'33'' I liken to fixating upon the least memorable bagatelle by Beethoven while ignoring the rest of his oeuvre. It is all too facile, glib and lazy (tsk, tsk!)
> 
> If any would care to remedy that ~
> The Emperor -- _is_ clothed....
> John Cage ~ _The Seasons_, for orchestra ("John Cage 100," Victoria Symphony, Tania Miller, conductor _Caution! Woman Driver_ :lol:
> Winter; Spring, Summer, Fall.
> (Surprise yourselves - try all of _The Seasons, _ or just _Summer_,)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> or these two well-known piano pieces:
> _In a landscape_
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _Dream_
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> and a really fine piece for percussion ensemble...
> _Third Construction_
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Real Composer, Real Clothes.
> 
> Best regards.


Interesting to hear some examples of Cage's work that stand at the opposite pole of his output from 4'33," and that surely everyone would regard as music. Discussions of "modernist" aesthetics get abstract and then, when everyone's head is about to explode, crazy (which seems fitting to me, but others may disagree :devil. I wasn't broadly familiar with Cage's music, so I enjoyed listening to these. I hear in them a delicate, gentle sensibility, pleasant, easygoing, rather likable. The orchestral and piano pieces don't sound "modernist" in any aggressive way; maybe it's evident only in their loose, improvisatory structure - enough interrelationships and sense of development not to sound random, but not pushing the formal component to the fore. Cage is here no _enfant terrible_ but a smiling fellow out picking mushrooms in his garden. I doubt that these pieces would have gotten the attention of the cognoscenti, though. For that, he would have needed works like:


----------



## Marschallin Blair

PetrB said:


> I think we find each the other with an admired sense of humor, and too I think each of us sometimes mistakes what was said in jest by the other. So, madame, it seems I owe you one, or two.
> 
> Best regards.


---
You're a darling.


----------



## Marschallin Blair

> Wooduck: I wasn't broadly familiar with Cage's music, so I enjoyed listening to these. I hear in them a delicate, gentle sensibility, pleasant, easygoing, rather likable. The orchestral and piano pieces don't sound "modernist" in any aggressive way; maybe it's evident only in their loose, improvisatory structure - enough interrelationships and sense of development not to sound random, but not pushing the formal component to the fore. Cage is here no enfant terrible but a smiling fellow out picking mushrooms in his garden. I doubt that these pieces would have gotten the attention of the cognoscenti, though. For that, he would have needed works like:


--
Okay. . . Am I being filmed? [head turning every which way] Is this a put on? Am I being gaslighted?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting#Clinical_examples

Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha.

Those videos are a riot.


----------



## Guest

Does this prolonged debate about one piece of music really represent the only issue in asking what the 'boundaries of music' are? I'm not sure why I've continued to read, except out of some dread fascination (though it was worth reading PetrB's post #408 which prompts me to wonder whether, if no one is around to hear the tree NOT falling..?) but I suppose I thought that someone might offer some other potential boundary - even though the very idea of any boundary has receive short shrift.

Any takers among those not of the (apparent) 'no boundaries' persuasion?


----------



## science

Earlier I mentioned a few and was accused of trying to change the subject due to my hatred of Cage. Or something. I'm not sufficiently modernisticish enough apparently. 

Anyway, here are a few: 

- animal "songs" such as birds and whales and so on - Music, or not? 
- sounds (such as rain or whatever) that are recorded and manipulated to some degree for a listener - How much or what kind of manipulation turns that into music, if any? 
- music that you hear in your head but do not actually hum or anything - Music, or not? 
- What exactly turns speech into music? There are all kinds of gray areas there, as we move from normal speech to the kind of thing that people do at poetry readings to various kinds of chants. 

In short, our lunatic obsession with one particular work is constraining our thoughts and conversation unnecessarily. We all made our minds up about whether a programmed period of "silence" in a concert hall counts as music 27 and a half pages ago.


----------



## Guest

I don't think it's our "lunatic obsession" with one piece that is "constraining our thoughts and conversation."

Thought and conversation are pretty seriously constrained in all internet discussion groups everywhere.

And lunatic obsessions are as thick as leaves in Vallambrosa.


----------



## science

some guy said:


> I don't think it's our "lunatic obsession" with one piece that is "constraining our thoughts and conversation."
> 
> Thought and conversation are pretty seriously constrained in all internet discussion groups everywhere.
> 
> And lunatic obsessions are as thick as leaves in Vallambrosa.


Ok. That's fine.


----------



## Svelte Silhouette

Music shud have no boundries as any string of noises can b tuneful or discordant 2 a listener. 

If loadsa peeps like something then it charts but that don't make it good cept in the eyes of those who see it so. 

If loadsa peeps don't like something then that don't make it rubbish either just not popular enuff 2 chart. 

QED there's something in any string of noises 4 some1 and I'm not gonna knock their taste just cos it aint mine m8s 

:tiphat:


----------



## Nereffid

science said:


> What exactly turns speech into music? There are all kinds of gray areas there, as we move from normal speech to the kind of thing that people do at poetry readings to various kinds of chants.


This ties in with what I was going to bring up anyway: Alvin Lucier's "I am sitting in a room".

From Wikipedia:


> I am sitting in a room (1969) is one of composer Alvin Lucier's best known works, featuring Lucier recording himself narrating a text, and then playing the recording back into the room, re-recording it. The new recording is then played back and re-recorded, and this process is repeated. Since all rooms have characteristic resonance or formant frequencies (e.g. different between a large hall and a small room), the effect is that certain frequencies are emphasized as they resonate in the room, until eventually the words become unintelligible, replaced by the pure resonant harmonies and tones of the room itself.


So here, speech is gradually altered to become music. Well, of course it won't match everyone's personal definition of "music", but it certainly fits inside my boundaries - though then again, it's not typical of my regular listening either. (Actually the recording I've heard in full is Lucier's 1981 version, which is about 45 minutes long. The first recording from 1969 is much shorter and TBH I don't like the sound of it).


----------



## PetrB

Nereffid said:


> This ties in with what I was going to bring up anyway: Alvin Lucier's "I am sitting in a room".


Nereffd, I would still prepare yourself for a lot of wailing about this one too 

_duration: 45'25''_


----------



## millionrainbows

mmsbls said:


> I strongly disagree. If you don't understand the piece, or his music, then please _*DO*_ ask questions whether simplistic or not. That's one of the major points to this forum. This forum is absolutely not just for those who understand or have significant experience with music. It is for all who enjoy classical music, and if some of those _want to understand something better_, please *ALWAYS* feel free to ask. ALWAYS. I simply can't emphasize that enough. It's a critically important aspect of this forum. That's my view.


If everyone involved was at peace with themselves and did not seek conflict, and their intentions were pure, yes, I would agree, but this is not an ideal situation. I seriously doubt that the jokesters on this thread are really seeking a deeper understanding of conceptual art, or they'd go read about Yoko Ono. No; they are here for the dog-pile.



mmsbls said:


> Now, I do understand that some feel that certain questions were not meant seriously. Perhaps. I would prefer that no one belittle any composer or work (or anyone actually). I can't speak for everyone else, but I know that many questions asked in the last few pages were very serious. It may not always be easy to tell the difference between a serious questions and one meant as a joke so I also assume some of those questions were misunderstood. That's not unusual on the internet or even in person.


I hope you will allow me the same leeway.


----------



## Guest

That's also the 1981 recording, Petr.

I did a quick check. The only version of the 1969 one I could find was a fifteen minute thing on Ubuweb. I don't think that's the whole thing, though. I'm pretty sure the 1969 version is also about 45 minutes long. As I remember.

There's also a 2000 version on Wergo, with a smashing piece by Ludger Brümmer. (_Medusa._) And an improv set I don't remember particularly liking, so I should probably give it another listen.


----------



## SONNET CLV

ArtMusic said:


> Oh, another valide reason in this case is that five billion folks on this planet would laugh if suggested 4'33" is music.


Are the first four sounded notes (three Gs and an E-flat) of Beethoven's Fifth music? YES NO

Is any one of those notes on it's own music? YES NO

If you answered NO to either question above, answer this: If the first four sounded notes or any one of those notes of Beethoven's Fifth are _not_ music, can we remove them from the score and still have the music of Beethoven's Fifth? YES NO

Final two questions: Is the initial rest in the score of Beethoven's Fifth part of the music of the Fifth? YES NO

If you answered NO, can that rest and all other rests (which provide silence in the work) be eliminated from the score and still have the music of Beethoven's Fifth? YES NO

Feel free to share your responses to the members of this thread.


----------



## Guest

SONNET CLV said:


> Are the first four sounded notes (three Gs and an E-flat) of Beethoven's Fifth music? YES NO
> 
> Is any one of those notes on it's own music? YES NO
> 
> If you answered NO to either question above, answer this: If the first four sounded notes or any one of those notes of Beethoven's Fifth are _not_ music, can we remove them from the score and still have the music of Beethoven's Fifth? YES NO
> 
> Final two questions: Is the initial rest in the score of Beethoven's Fifth part of the music of the Fifth? YES NO
> 
> If you answered NO, can that rest and all other rests (which provide silence in the work) be eliminated from the score and still have the music of Beethoven's Fifth? YES NO
> 
> Feel free to share your responses to the members of this thread.


If you removed the Mona Lisa's face, would the remainder still be a painting? Or art?
Is a chair leg alone, a chair?

Where is this line of questioning going?


----------



## arpeggio

I get it.


----------



## ArtMusic

SONNET CLV said:


> Are the first four sounded notes (three Gs and an E-flat) of Beethoven's Fifth music? YES NO
> 
> Is any one of those notes on it's own music? YES NO
> 
> If you answered NO to either question above, answer this: If the first four sounded notes or any one of those notes of Beethoven's Fifth are _not_ music, can we remove them from the score and still have the music of Beethoven's Fifth? YES NO
> 
> Final two questions: Is the initial rest in the score of Beethoven's Fifth part of the music of the Fifth? YES NO
> 
> If you answered NO, can that rest and all other rests (which provide silence in the work) be eliminated from the score and still have the music of Beethoven's Fifth? YES NO
> 
> Feel free to share your responses to the members of this thread.


This is fun.

Play Beethoven's 5th backwards; that is from the 4th movement to the 1st, and for each movement, rewrite the score backwards (subject to some technical consistencies, of course). The new revised version is still music (and Beethoven's 5th). _Ja, ja oder nicht, nicht?_


----------



## Guest

arpeggio said:


> I get it.


If you get it, you might enlighten me!


----------



## Guest

SONNET CLV said:


> If you answered NO, can that rest and all other rests (which provide silence in the work) be eliminated from the score and still have the music of Beethoven's Fifth? YES NO


Irrelevant. As has been legitimately argued already, 4'33" is not a work of silence.


----------



## Mister Man

According to _Music Notes: The Quick and Easy Guide to Music Basics_, "Music is organized sound through time". I like that definition. However, don't ask me what I think of atonality, lest I contradict myself.


----------



## millionrainbows

Mister Man said:


> According to _Music Notes: The Quick and Easy Guide to Music Basics_, "Music is organized sound through time". I like that definition. However, don't ask me what I think of atonality, lest I contradict myself.


Ok, I won't ask you.


----------



## SONNET CLV

MacLeod said:


> If you removed the Mona Lisa's face, would the remainder still be a painting? Or art?
> Is a chair leg alone, a chair?
> 
> Where is this line of questioning going?


First of all, I was responding to a post by ArtMusic, one who, by his "handle", should know better than to be seeking "valide" [sic]reasons why Cage's 4'33" is not music. His (I suppose randomly selected) statistic of 5 billion people implies that 2 billion people "get" the intention of Cage's work. Two billion people getting _any one thing _about art is remarkable. There are serious artists in the modern movements who would contend that Mona Lisa is "weak" as art goes. The Dadaist for instance.

Second, you need have no concern about my own grounding in understanding Cage and his methodology. I have probably read every major essay on the Cage "silent piece"; I can tell you that immediately behind my chair, on a shelf full of literature and philosophy texts is "a gem of a book" by Kyle Gann titled _No Such Thing As Silence: John Cage's 4'33"_ in which the author argues that though 4'33" is (if I may quote the first blurb on the back cover) "often suspected of being merely a 'provocative stunt,' is actually one of the best understood and most influential works of avant-garde music." I agree with the use of the term "avant-garde music" in that sentence rather than, say, "avant-garde philosophy" or "avant-garde non-music". Cage's work as music is a settled matter with me. I do not especially "like" all of Cage's music, but I can't claim to "like" all of Beethoven either. Still, I have invested time and mental energy deliberating about the meaning of art, and I feel comfortable with my conclusions.

To address your query directly, I will contend that DaVinci's painting would still be a painting (and a work of art) were Mona's face not in the work. If we saw past her headless body into more of that amazing landscape, we would have, arguably, a surrealistic "portrait" more akin to a 20th century artist such as Dali, but it would be art nonetheless. Would it be a masterpiece? We can't say, only speculate, which speculation could go either way.

"Is a chair leg alone, a chair?" No. But it is a portion of a chair. Yet, a chair missing one or more legs remains a chair. If you were to take a chair without legs to the woodworker and ask him to furnish the piece with legs, you'd probably say something like "Can you make legs for this chair." Were you to take in only a chair leg, you might ask "Can you make a chair that will aesthetically incorporate this leg?" And, interestingly, if someone were to find only the leg of the chair lying in a corner of your garage, the person might pick it up and ask "Where's the rest of this chair?"

Brahms once remarked something to the effect that any fool can come up with a great melody, but it is what one does with a melody that determines one's level of talent. Beethoven came up with a theme or motif of three Gs and an E-flat, and he certainly was talented enough to know what to do with the notes ... or, to put it another way, with that _musical_ theme. (And if a theme is a "musical" theme, is it not music?)

My purpose here was never to play semantics games, though the Greek root of "semantics" is the word for "significant" implying a study of meaning. I rather hoped my post would prompt certain ones to ponder the meaning of art. Perhaps you've done that already; I know I certainly have, and still do -- the process of defining art remains for me an ongoing evolution since new and different pieces come along all the time, the results of the numinous thing we call the human imagination. Cage's very 4'33" is one such work which forces us to reassess our definitions of art. This is no _un_serious matter, at least in my view.

Whether or not you, MacLeod, can understand where "this line of questioning going" is of less concern to me (and the purpose of my post) than whether or not ArtMusic might understand.

Still, the very fact that you challenge definitions of art (regardless of whether they agree or disagree with mine) is commendable. One of the great purposes (maybe _the _purpose) of art is to challenge thought itself.

I have long defined art as that which is "functionally useless yet intrinsically useful." I celebrate the early cave bison painter as our first artist, and first real "human", for creating something that will not feed or clothe the tribe, but which existed only for higher intellectual reasons. It is the bison painting that creates us as human, for only humans can celebrate with art, the "functionally useless" which creates for our spirit something "intrinsically useful". Animals don't create art. Spiders don't create artistic webs (humans might designate them as artful looking), birds don't create artistic nests ... etc. The joy of being human is the ability to enjoy art, to comprehend it and appreciate it. And as a species we should welcome those among us who have the imaginations to push the boundaries and challenge our thought to move in ever new and greater directions. I know that I do.


----------



## arpeggio

*Why?*



MacLeod said:


> If you get it, you might enlighten me!


Why? You are much smarter than I am. I seriously doubt that I can explain it. I was just trying to say that there was one person who understood the point SONNET CLV was trying to make.

Anyway, he knows much more about this than I do and did a far superior job of clarifying his position than I could.


----------



## ArtMusic

SONNET CLV said:


> ....
> I have long defined art as that which is "functionally useless yet intrinsically useful." I celebrate the early cave bison painter as our first artist, and first real "human", for creating something that will not feed or clothe the tribe, but which existed only for higher intellectual reasons. It is the bison painting that creates us as human, for only humans can celebrate with art, the "functionally useless" which creates for our spirit something "intrinsically useful". Animals don't create art. Spiders don't create artistic webs (humans might designate them as artful looking), birds don't create artistic nests ... etc. The joy of being human is the ability to enjoy art, to comprehend it and appreciate it. And as a species we should welcome those among us who have the imaginations to push the boundaries and challenge our thought to move in ever new and greater directions. I know that I do.


I have skipped reading all but your last paragraph (assuming the more pertinent points are in the last paragraph). The early cave bison painter tells us a lot about his world with his beutiful cave painting. 4'33" tell us nothing but pretentious ideas that even a bison painter would not agree with but laugh at. There's a difference between great art and one that's not. But of course, ervy person is entitled to enjoy whatever art, great or not. Pure an simple.


----------



## Mahlerian

ArtMusic said:


> There's a difference between great art and one that's not. But of course, every person is entitled to enjoy whatever art, great or not. Pure an simple.


And you are the one who, among all of us, is best at distinguishing between the two, is that right?


----------



## KenOC

Mahlerian said:


> And you are the one who, among all of us, is best at distinguishing between the two, is that right?


Eh, no, that would be myself. After all, it was I who invented the "Great-o-Meter," which accurately reports the greatness of a piece of music by analyzing only a few seconds of it. Readings are given in ludwigs, or more commonly, milliludwigs. But we've discussed that before on this forum.


----------



## SONNET CLV

KenOC said:


> Eh, no, that would be myself. After all, it was I who invented the "Great-o-Meter," *which accurately reports the greatness of a piece of music by analyzing only a few seconds of it. *Readings are given in ludwigs, or more commonly, milliludwigs. But we've discussed that before on this forum.


Apparently, poster ArtMusic has evolved a similar sense as your "Great-o-Meter" since he needs not read an entire commentary to assume its meaning, but rather needs sample only a single paragraph.



ArtMusic said:


> *I have skipped reading all but your last paragraph (assuming the more pertinent points are in the last paragraph). *The early cave bison painter tells us a lot about his world with his beutiful cave painting. 4'33" tell us nothing but pretentious ideas that even a bison painter would not agree with but laugh at. There's a difference between great art and one that's not. But of course, ervy person is entitled to enjoy whatever art, great or not. Pure an simple.


I wonder if he judges a classical symphony by listening only to the coda of the final movement!

More to the point of this thread, I wonder if he judges Cage's 4'33" by listening only to the final 33 seconds.


----------



## Guest

arpeggio said:


> Why? You are much smarter than I am.


You flatterer you! OK, how much do you want to borrow? 



SONNET CLV said:


> Second, you need have no concern about my own grounding in understanding Cage and his methodology. I have probably read every major essay on the Cage "silent piece"; I can tell you that immediately behind my chair, on a shelf full of literature and philosophy texts is "a gem of a book" by Kyle Gann titled _No Such Thing As Silence: John Cage's 4'33"_ in which the author argues that though 4'33" is (if I may quote the first blurb on the back cover) "often suspected of being merely a 'provocative stunt,' is actually one of the best understood and most influential works of avant-garde music." I agree with the use of the term "avant-garde music" in that sentence rather than, say, "avant-garde philosophy" or "avant-garde non-music". Cage's work as music is a settled matter with me. I do not especially "like" all of Cage's music, but I can't claim to "like" all of Beethoven either. *Still, I have invested time and mental energy deliberating about the meaning of art, and I feel comfortable with my conclusions*.
> 
> So have I, but I don't think I need to 'show' you my shelf-ful of literature to demonstrate my creds.
> 
> To address your query directly, I will contend that DaVinci's painting would still be a painting (and a work of art) were Mona's face not in the work. If we saw past her headless body into more of that amazing landscape, we would have, arguably, a surrealistic "portrait" more akin to a 20th century artist such as Dali, but it would be art nonetheless. Would it be a masterpiece? We can't say, only speculate, which speculation could go either way.
> 
> "Is a chair leg alone, a chair?" No. But it is a portion of a chair. Yet, a chair missing one or more legs remains a chair. If you were to take a chair without legs to the woodworker and ask him to furnish the piece with legs, you'd probably say something like "Can you make legs for this chair." Were you to take in only a chair leg, you might ask "Can you make a chair that will aesthetically incorporate this leg?" And, interestingly, if someone were to find only the leg of the chair lying in a corner of your garage, the person might pick it up and ask "Where's the rest of this chair?"
> 
> My questions were, of course, rhetorical, aimed only at asking whether a thing is still a thing if part of it is missing - assuming that what was what your questions were aimed at. I don't see how any of your answers help me understand the reasoning behind your questions to Artmusic.
> 
> I rather hoped my post would prompt certain ones to ponder the meaning of art. Perhaps you've done that already;
> 
> See my answer above.
> 
> I know I certainly have, and still do -- the process of defining art remains for me an ongoing evolution since new and different pieces come along all the time, the results of the numinous thing we call the human imagination. Cage's very 4'33" is one such work which forces us to reassess our definitions of art. This is no _un_serious matter, at least in my view.
> 
> I agree.
> 
> Whether or not you, MacLeod, can understand where "this line of questioning going" is of less concern to me (and the purpose of my post) than whether or not ArtMusic might understand.
> 
> But ArtMusic has not chosen to respond and I have. Am I not entitled to your 'concern' as is any member of TC who posts here and wishes to engage with your questions?
> 
> Still, the very fact that you challenge definitions of art (regardless of whether they agree or disagree with mine) is commendable. One of the great purposes (maybe _the _purpose) of art is to challenge thought itself.
> 
> I agree.
> 
> I have long defined art as that which is "functionally useless yet intrinsically useful." I celebrate the early cave bison painter as our first artist, and first real "human", for creating something that will not feed or clothe the tribe, but which existed only for higher intellectual reasons. It is the bison painting that creates us as human, for only humans can celebrate with art, the "functionally useless" which creates for our spirit something "intrinsically useful". Animals don't create art. Spiders don't create artistic webs (humans might designate them as artful looking), birds don't create artistic nests ... etc. The joy of being human is the ability to enjoy art, to comprehend it and appreciate it. And as a species we should welcome those among us who have the imaginations to push the boundaries and challenge our thought to move in ever new and greater directions. I know that I do.


_One _of the joys of being human, yes. And I'm very happy to consider the question of what is and isn't art, and see what the boundary-pushers have to offer.

Yet no amount of literature telling me what I should take 4'33" to be obliges me to do so, though more than once it has been suggested that I should bow to the weight of evidence - your shelf-ful, for example - in favour of a particular view. As we all know, the argumentum ad populum has many adherents. Art is something to be consumed, in the end, personally, not collectively, though we may do so in great herds in the theatre, the cinema, the gallery and the concert hall. Even if the artist requires us to behave in a particular way when consuming her product, it is what the art does for us one-to-one that matters.

To answer your questions then,



> Are the first four sounded notes (three Gs and an E-flat) of Beethoven's Fifth music? NO
> 
> Is any one of those notes on it's own music? NO
> 
> If you answered NO to either question above, answer this: If the first four sounded notes or any one of those notes of Beethoven's Fifth are _not music, can we remove them from the score and still have the music of Beethoven's Fifth? NO
> 
> Final two questions: Is the initial rest in the score of Beethoven's Fifth part of the music of the Fifth? YES
> 
> If you answered NO, (I didn't, so I don't need to answer this one) can that rest and all other rests (which provide silence in the work) be eliminated from the score and still have the music of Beethoven's Fifth? YES NO_


Now what?


----------



## ArtMusic

SONNET CLV said:


> ....I wonder if he judges a classical symphony by listening only to the coda of the final movement!
> 
> More to the point of this thread, I wonder if he judges Cage's 4'33" by listening only to the final 33 seconds.


What a great idea, especially the last half minute version. It's still music though, right? YES NO


----------



## SONNET CLV

MacLeod said:


> ... I'm very happy to consider the question of what is and isn't art, and see what the boundary-pushers have to offer.
> 
> Now what?


If any note on its own is not music, then the terms "a musical note" or "a note of music" make no sense. Yet a score is composed of musical notes. How can a symphony be "music" if it is made up of a collection of non-musical notes?

The whole matter becomes a sort of Zeno paradox.

I recall the music instructor praising a trumpet note as "more musical" than the previous note which was more dull blat than brassy "B-flat". Cage (and maybe Don Cherry) perhaps would have considered the dull blat just as musical as the brassy B-flat, since people's definitions of what is musical and what is music differ.

Even to assert that one note is "more musical" than another bears comparison to one geometric form being "more circular" than another. Language often gets in the way. Which is why music is so powerful -- it eschews the need for language in order to make its point.

I certainly can understand someone not appreciating Cage's 4'33" as "music" or as a "musical work", and that is a valid prerogative. I would contend that Cage wrote it _as_ a musical work, thus his use of staff paper for the score.









It's interesting to note that Cage doesn't use rests in his composition. The measures are open, as they would be in a composition calling for improvisation. Could the performer himself improvise? Cage doesn't say, but he does allow for extraneous sounds to "fill the time/space" of the piece for four minutes and 33 seconds.

Some composers don't even use score paper, charting out their compositions with graphic designs and/or worded descriptions. What the performer produces is still music, whether one enjoys the piece or not.

Since Cage allowed for environmental sounds to incorporate into his music, 4'33" has a lot of "sound" possibilities. I quite understand that it is not a "silent" piece of music. But it_ is _a piece of music. At least as _I_ accept the definition. And as, I believe, the composer did, too.

New artistic ideas often come with resistance. I have no doubt but that the original bison painter in the Lascaux Caves met with resistance. Who knows? The first several cave painters may have been killed by the tribe. After all, such ones were not contributing to the welfare of the group, which needed meat to eat and furs to wear. Such a waste of time, this cave painting.

But it's indicative that our civilizing tendencies actually begin to flourish around the same time as the cave paintings -- some 30,000 years ago. And things haven't been the same since.

By the way, have you any thoughts on Kazimir Malevich's painting _White on White_? Is that art?


----------



## mmsbls

SONNET CLV said:


> If any note on its own is not music, then the terms "a musical note" or "a note of music" make no sense. Yet a score is composed of musical notes. How can a symphony be "music" if it is made up of a collection of non-musical notes?


I think I would tend not to view a single note as music, and I think it's not so hard to understand how a symphony could be music made of "non-musical" notes. Consider a triangle. No single side is a triangle, and yet we refer to a "triangle side". The _relationship_ between the sides along with the sides themselves create the triangle.



SONNET CLV said:


> I certainly can understand someone not appreciating Cage's 4'33" as "music" or as a "musical work", and that is a valid prerogative. I would contend that Cage wrote it _as_ a musical work, thus his use of staff paper for the score.


I agree that it would be hard to argue that Cage did not write 4'33" as a music work. I also believe that the general consensus amongst those who program classical music is that 4'33" is a musical work.



SONNET CLV said:


> By the way, have you any thoughts on Kazimir Malevich's painting _White on White_? Is that art?


I would say that Malevich's _White on White_ or _Black Square_ is clearly art as the creator intended it as art and further intended the painting (at least parts of the canvas/linen and oil) to look as it does. The visual display of the art work was consciously intended by the creator.


----------



## Nereffid

mmsbls said:


> I think I would tend not to view a single note as music


IIRC, Deryck Cooke's book "The Language of Music" begins with a quoted excerpt from Wagner's overture to Rienzi: the first note.

Listen to it, and it's obvious.


----------



## Guest

SONNET CLV said:


> By the way, have you any thoughts on Kazimir Malevich's painting _White on White_? Is that art?


I hadn't had any, but since you ask, yes. But it did occur to me that if an artist takes a completely virgin canvas, puts a frame around it and calls it a _painting_, I'd have to disagree. If the same artist took a frame, placed it round a window through which I could see the world go by, and invited me to look at his _painting_, I'd also disagree, but I might call it _art._

Let's be clear. I like 4'33" well enough, though given my definition of the boundaries of music (see post on page one of this interminable thread) it's not a work that I wish to return to: I have no intention of buying it or going to see it performed. I am very happy for it be considered a_rt_, and even a _musical statement_, I just don't regard it as _music_.


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## Guest

mmsbls said:


> Consider a triangle. No single side is a triangle, and yet we refer to a "triangle side". The _relationship_ between the sides along with the sides themselves create the triangle.


Seems reasonable enough, until you start wondering how many points of similarity there are between geometric figures and pieces of music. I would venture to say "none."

A triangle is a particular type of geometric figure. It is a particular thing; a simple object with a strict definition.

Not much similarity there to a symphony, eh?

Plus, how do you know, given just the one side, that you've got a triangle side? Could be any old geometric shape's side. You can only call a line a triangle side if you've got the whole triangle already and are pointing to that particular side. But that's not what we're doing when we talk about whether or not a single note is music. We've already identified the sound as a "note," which puts us into the realm of music already, without needing any particular composition to identify it as such.

But it is interesting how language enters into it. Note (!) that we call any composition of any length or complexity a "piece" of music. It's not the whole; it's a piece. Tempting to say, then, that no single composition is music. It's only a part of music. The side of a triangle, say, or the leg of a chair. Not sure I want to go down _that_ rabbit hole, however.

Windows, just by the way MacLeod, are already things that have frames. So your imaginary friend's project would involve putting a second frame around it. Which changes nothing, really. A window is already a framed chunk of reality, just like a painting, which, also just by the way, is a thing made out of paint. So calling a scene seen through a window a "painting" would be a metaphor. _4'33"_ is literally a piece (!) of music.


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## Guest

some guy said:


> Windows, just by the way MacLeod, are already things that have frames.


So, a window without a frame is not a window? I thought a window might just be an aperture in a wall (for seeing through and for letting light in, as opposed to a door, for physically passing through) - it could be framed or unframed, glazed or unglazed.


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## Guest

Aperture implies frame. It might not be pieces of wood or metal. Just a hole in a wall is already something framed, i.e., with boundaries, in your example just the edges of the aperture.

But most people, I'm sure including you, think of windows as things that are both glazed and framed. But either way, any thing with edges of the sort implied by the word aperture is something that is framed.


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## ArtMusic

The modernists would argue that there are no boundaries to music - any sound can be music as long as the composer says so. There are those who would go further that the listeners too can also declare if any sounds can be music, irrespective of whether it was composed or not (e.g. a bird's song or a jackhammer etc.)

I would rather retain the normal usage of the word "music" as used by ordinary people and inspired composers over the centuries. Pretentious concepts etc. will always be transparently so, just a speck of concept that fades with time.


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## Guest

some guy said:


> Aperture implies frame. It might not be pieces of wood or metal. Just a hole in a wall is already something framed, i.e., with boundaries, in your example just the edges of the aperture.
> 
> But most people, I'm sure including you, think of windows as things that are both glazed and framed. But either way, any thing with edges of the sort implied by the word aperture is something that is framed.


In my world, 'boundary' and 'frame' are not the same thing. But I can see there is room for overlap!


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## Serge

Sorry, I didn't read the whole thread.

So, if John Cage’s 4’33” is not music, and I too believe that it isn't, can this piece not still be one of the boundaries of music? It very well could be. I mean, what's the boundary of an air balloon, to think about it? The same thing here. Must a boundary necessarily be a part of what it bounds? Musically speaking, can one possibly go lower than the 4'33" bottom line? Hardly so. But above it - the sky is the limit, I imagine. Until you hit the ceiling - which in this case would probably be some incomprehensible or indistinguishable noise. Or both.

Mind-blowing, I know.


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## SONNET CLV

ArtMusic said:


> The modernists would argue that there are no boundaries to music - any sound can be music as long as the composer says so. There are those who would go further that the listeners too can also declare if any sounds can be music, irrespective of whether it was composed or not (e.g. a bird's song or a jackhammer etc.)
> 
> *I would rather retain the normal usage of the word "music" as used by ordinary people *and inspired composers over the centuries. Pretentious concepts etc. will always be transparently so, just a speck of concept that fades with time.


Since I subscribe to the notion that "any sound can be music as long as the composer says so" and "that the listeners too can also declare if any sounds can be music", and since that is apparently not a notion of "ordinary people", does that by default make me an _extraordinary_ person?


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## Mahlerian

ArtMusic said:


> The modernists would argue that there are no boundaries to music - any sound can be music as long as the composer says so.


If you had read the discussion on this topic, you'll find that "modernists" (if the word is used as here to describe anyone who listens to or enjoys contemporary music and its trends) actually have quite a range of opinions on the issue.



ArtMusic said:


> I would rather retain the normal usage of the word "music" as used by ordinary people and inspired composers over the centuries. Pretentious concepts etc. will always be transparently so, just a speck of concept that fades with time.


"Ordinary people", in my experience, also have quite a range of views on this matter.

Occasionally, in a fit of masochism, I end up checking out the iTunes top ten, just to see what "the kids" are listening to these days. Once in a while I look at the reviews of said singles. Inevitably, the phrase "this is not music" turns up before long.

I've talked to a number of people over the years, and there is far from any kind of consensus as to what the term "music" really covers.


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## mmsbls

some guy said:


> Seems reasonable enough, until you start wondering how many points of similarity there are between geometric figures and pieces of music. I would venture to say "none."
> 
> A triangle is a particular type of geometric figure. It is a particular thing; a simple object with a strict definition.
> 
> Not much similarity there to a symphony, eh?


I agree a triangle has little similarity to classical music, but the analogy is not between triangles and classical music. The analogy is between things that are parts of wholes. A line can be, but is not necessarily, part of a whole triangle. A note (I take that as a sound with a pitch) can be, but is not necessarily, part of a whole musical work. Just as we could view a line as an isolated geometrical thing or as part of a geometrical two or more dimensional shape, we can view a note as an isolated sound or part of a musical work.



Nereffid said:


> IIRC, Deryck Cooke's book "The Language of Music" begins with a quoted excerpt from Wagner's overture to Rienzi: the first note.
> 
> Listen to it, and it's obvious.


This was interesting. I listened to the first note and thought of a horn (say of a car) moving away from me rather than music. That is until the next set of notes sounded. I agree it seems obvious when one is already thinking about the overture.


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## mmsbls

ArtMusic said:


> Pretentious concepts etc. will always be transparently so, just a speck of concept that fades with time.


I'm not sure what works (that others believe are music) you feel are pretentious concepts. Do you distinguish between pretentious concepts of music and works that you feel just don't work well or maybe are interesting but not music? I guess I'm asking why do you feel they are pretentious?


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## Jobis

Music is like a near-infinite plain extending far as the eye can see in all directions. We are all familiar with certain well-trodden areas of land that represent the immensely popular household names of many major musical periods; the baroque, the classical, the romantic. Some areas of the plain (the classical and romantic) are clearly more frequented than the others (the modern, the medieval).

On the outskirts of these patches of land are wilder-growing plots, far less explored. These areas house the likes of serialism and dodecaphonic music. Other fringe areas house avant garde musics, and beyond them the land becomes even bumpier and more hazardous, but a few brave travellers venture down their slopes and their heavy footsteps begin to flatten the land somewhat, beating down a path and making it easier for others to follow.

Despite the apparent, surface-level contrasts, all these musics belong to the same, level plain; no amount of terraforming or violent activity could promote any hierarchy among the plots, which readily spill into one another and blur the lines. 

The point of this silly image is that I don't consider musical movements and changes to indicate progress; rather, we are always exploring new possibilities of music that all belong on the same plain as every other type of music. The way music changes is the result of discovery and exploration; 'progress' only describes an artist refining his own technique.

I know this is probably obvious to all of you, but I like to try and put thoughts into some kind of order for my own sake at least. :lol:


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## ArtMusic

mmsbls said:


> I'm not sure what works (that others believe are music) you feel are pretentious concepts. Do you distinguish between pretentious concepts of music and works that you feel just don't work well or maybe are interesting but not music? I guess I'm asking why do you feel they are pretentious?


Mainly conceptual pieces; pieces that require a lot of discussion so that the average concert-goer "gets it" (and that average concert-goer includes folks like me  . I think these pieces have more to be "said" than to be "listened" to.


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## dgee

ArtMusic said:


> Mainly conceptual pieces; pieces that require a lot of discussion so that the average concert-goer "gets it" (and that average concert-goer includes folks like me  . I think these pieces have more to be "said" than to be "listened" to.


I'm not sure what particualr pieces you are referring to, but do they get performed much? Are musicians actually programming it? Are average concert-goers really coming across this music?


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## ArtMusic

dgee said:


> I'm not sure what particualr pieces you are referring to, but do they get performed much? Are musicians actually programming it? Are average concert-goers really coming across this music?


Well, a lot of pieces by Mr John Cage for example.

Similar to conceptual pieces of visual art. You go into a fine gallery and see for example a pile of rocks/stones neatly placed on the floor. Paragraphs of well written explanation are kindly provided to explain what the work means. Nothing wrong with that method required to help people understand (and hopefully enjoy) the pieces. But ordinarily though, it would have crossed the "boundaries" of what most folks would have first thought when seeing the work.


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## violadude

ArtMusic said:


> Well, a lot of pieces by Mr John Cage for example.


Name one besides 4'33" and imaginary landscapes 3 and 4.


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## KenOC

violadude said:


> Name one besides 4'33" and imaginary landscapes 3 and 4.


Actually there are a whole lot. You can start here and branch out.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...e#Happenings.2C_theater_.281959.E2.80.9368.29


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## violadude

KenOC said:


> Actually there are a whole lot. You can start here and branch out.
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...e#Happenings.2C_theater_.281959.E2.80.9368.29


What makes those pieces "conceptual"?


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## KenOC

violadude said:


> What makes those pieces "conceptual"?


When I see titles like: 
Theatre Piece, for 1 to 8 performers (1960)
Where Are We Going? And What Are We Doing?, composed lecture, tapes (1960-61)
Variations II, for any number of performers and any kind and number of instruments (1961)
Variations III, for any number of people performing any actions (1962)
0'00" (4'33" No. 2), solo for any performer (1962)
Variations IV for any number of performers, any sounds or combinations of sounds produced by any means, with or without other activities (1963)

I think "conceptual." YMMV of course!


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## violadude

KenOC said:


> When I see titles like:
> Theatre Piece, for 1 to 8 performers (1960)
> Where Are We Going? And What Are We Doing?, composed lecture, tapes (1960-61)
> Variations II, for any number of performers and any kind and number of instruments (1961)
> Variations III, for any number of people performing any actions (1962)
> 0'00" (4'33" No. 2), solo for any performer (1962)
> Variations IV for any number of performers, any sounds or combinations of sounds produced by any means, with or without other activities (1963)
> 
> I think "conceptual." YMMV of course!


Maybe some of those are a little conceptual. But more importantly they are all indeterminate pieces. An indeterminate piece is not necessarily a conceptual piece though.

On second thought, "Where are we going, What are we doing" doesn't sound like it's an indeterminate piece either.


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## dgee

I've never seen a performance of a John Cage piece and I actively seek out modern/contemporary music. I'd love to live somewhere the average concert-goer has a chance to hear Cage


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## KenOC

violadude said:


> Maybe some of those are a little conceptual. But more importantly they are all indeterminate pieces. An indeterminate piece is not necessarily a conceptual piece though.
> 
> On second thought, "Where are we going, What are we doing" doesn't sound like it's an indeterminate piece either.


If you call works where any number of people can do whatever they please "indeterminate," then that's your definition. It's certainly not mine. But I'd be interested in seeing your definitions of "indeterminate" and "conceptual."


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## Crudblud

"Cage has some pieces that are conceptual, and a whole lot more that aren't" is, I think, the point.


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## violadude

KenOC said:


> If you call works where any number of people can do whatever they please "indeterminate," then that's your definition. It's certainly not mine. But I'd be interested in seeing your definitions of "indeterminate" and "conceptual."


An indeterminate piece is a piece which contains uncontrolled elements, such as the number of people playing.

A conceptual piece is a piece written, not necessarily to listen to, but for the purpose of communicating a specific concept.

It's possible for an indeterminate piece to also be a conceptual piece but it doesn't necessarily have to be. Knowing a little bit about Cage's attitude, some of those pieces sound as if he wasn't trying to communicate a certain concept, but just wanted people to listen to whatever sounds came out of the uncontrolled elements in them.


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## dgee

I'd probably add that a title isn't a great indication of whether a "concept" takes precedence over aesthetic concerns - but I don't know any of the works on the list. You'll also notice they've been made in a particualr 3 year period in the early 60s so obviously the time was right for doing "happenings!!"

It's easy to leap, I suppose, from finding an unfamiliar approach to thinking the artist is "conceptual" or "pretentious" or however you want to spin it


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## violadude

Crudblud said:


> "Cage has some pieces that are conceptual, and a whole lot more that aren't" is, I think, the point.


If people judged Mozart by the same standards they judged Cage everyone would be saying 'Mozart? You mean that charlatan that wrote "A Musical Joke"??'


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## aleazk

dgee said:


> It's easy to leap, I suppose, from finding an unfamiliar approach to thinking the artist is "conceptual" or "pretentious" or however you want to spin it


Well, that's the favorite tool of the reactionaries... Crocoduck.


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## violadude

aleazk said:


> Well, that's the favorite tool of the reactionaries... Crocoduck.


Oh god...

Well, "Crocoducks" actually do exist. We just call them penguins and Homo Habilis instead of fish-birds and man-apes.


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## SONNET CLV

Observe. 
When you lay the scores of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and John Cage's 4'33" down on the podium in front of you, they both sound the same.


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## aleazk

violadude said:


> Oh god...
> 
> Well, "Crocoducks" actually do exist. We just call them penguins and Homo Habilis instead of fish-birds and man-apes.


Oh, the "man-ape"... I know many of those! Be careful because they bite!


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## science

I just realized that by default I have been aiming to include as much as possible in the space designated "music."

Just for fun, what if I tried to be exclusive, to include as little as possible?

I guess I might say that "music" is sound intentionally structured by at least one human being for at least one human being's pleasure (pleasure in the sound itself or in the process of creating it or both).

Even in this case I think I would have to allow for sound-creations that intend to incorporate "random noise," failing therefore to exclude Cage's work which is of such notoriety that it is almost the only thing discussed here. I think it would also fail to exclude recordings of rain or of birds singing or of industrial noise or whatever, since the process of recording inevitably involves some kinds of intentional manipulation of sound with the intention of entertaining (or "pleasing" in some other way) someone. It would also fail to exclude wind chimes or church bells, as despite some randomness involved they've actually been created by human intention for people to enjoy the sounds they make.

The only things I think I would manage to exclude with this _maximally exclusive_ definition are sounds intended purely or merely to encode information (i.e. ordinary speech and so on), sound unintentionally created as a byproduct of doing other things, and sounds made by animals.

Of course I'm not taking seriously any definition of music along the lines of "music is stuff that other people say is music AND which I enjoy."


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## Guest

mmsbls said:


> The analogy is between things that are parts of wholes. A line can be, but is not necessarily, part of a whole triangle. A note (I take that as a sound with a pitch) can be, but is not necessarily, part of a whole musical work.


Indeed, a line is a thing in and of itself. And a note is a thing in and of itself. (And all sounds have pitches, just by the way. As in "high" or "low." Which are metaphors and not very good ones, either, but "oh well.")

Anyway, you're still comparing triangles and music, however. That is, you are saying that a line by itself is not a triangle, and a note by itself is not music. But a line and a note are not any more similar than triangle and music. That is, while a line by itself would not be called a triangle, there's nothing necessarily about music that means a single note cannot be considered music. And since very probably everyone in the world with functioning ears would think "music" just hearing a single note, the triangle analogy breaks down. Probably no one in the world would see a line and (inevitably) think "triangle."


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## Guest

KenOC said:


> When I see titles like:
> Theatre Piece, for 1 to 8 performers (1960)
> Where Are We Going? And What Are We Doing?, composed lecture, tapes (1960-61)
> Variations II, for any number of performers and any kind and number of instruments (1961)
> Variations III, for any number of people performing any actions (1962)
> 0'00" (4'33" No. 2), solo for any performer (1962)
> Variations IV for any number of performers, any sounds or combinations of sounds produced by any means, with or without other activities (1963)
> 
> I think "conceptual." YMMV of course!


Well, that very last part is true, of course.

When I see titles like "Prelude and fugue" or "symphony" or "theme and variations" I think "conceptual." (Once again we are a) getting tripped up by language or, more likely, b) using language to trip ourselves up and everyone with us. Ask yourself, do you know what a concept is? Answer that and then ask yourself this, is there any piece of music of any kind that is _not_ conceptual?

When I see titles like

Theatre Piece, for 1 to 8 performers (1960)
Where Are We Going? And What Are We Doing?, composed lecture, tapes (1960-61)
Variations II, for any number of performers and any kind and number of instruments (1961)
Variations III, for any number of people performing any actions (1962)
0'00" (4'33" No. 2), solo for any performer (1962)
Variations IV for any number of performers, any sounds or combinations of sounds produced by any means, with or without other activities (1963)

I think "fun!" But that's maybe because I've experienced those pieces, either live or on recordings, and have performed in some of them as well. So I know them for themselves, not just by their titles. (Just as an aside, I also do not judge books by their covers.)


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## Guest

some guy said:


> Indeed, a line is a thing in and of itself. And a note is a thing in and of itself. (And all sounds have pitches, just by the way. As in "high" or "low." [...]


Just a quick intervention on my part: *All sounds do not have pitches*. There is no perceptible pitch in the sound made when, for example, I drop my ham, tomato and mozzarella _panini_ on the floor.

Anyway, do carry on.


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## aleazk

I can foresee one of those semantic discussions we like so much around here... (I'm in TH's side in case there is a voting, lol)


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## millionrainbows

I think the boundaries of music are determined by the electromagnetic spectrum. If it's too high, it becomes radio waves and light.


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## millionrainbows

violadude said:


> Oh god...
> 
> Well, "Crocoducks" actually do exist. We just call them penguins and Homo Habilis instead of fish-birds and man-apes.


How about that "Tiguana" that Volswagen introduced?


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## mmsbls

some guy said:


> Anyway, you're still comparing triangles and music, however. That is, you are saying that a line by itself is not a triangle, and a note by itself is not music. But a line and a note are not any more similar than triangle and music. That is, while a line by itself would not be called a triangle, there's nothing necessarily about music that means a single note cannot be considered music.


My analogy focuses on my belief that music consists of relationships between sounds (and rests) just as geometric shapes, such as a triangle, consists of relationships between lines. In this sense the analogy is apt. But if one does not believe that music always consists of relationships between sounds, then they would certainly be free to consider a single sounded note as music.



some guy said:


> And since very probably everyone in the world with functioning ears would think "music" just hearing a single note, the triangle analogy breaks down. Probably no one in the world would see a line and (inevitably) think "triangle."


Interesting because before posting my earlier post I did a thought experiment. I thought of several songs which had words sung quickly (say eighth notes) in a register near that used for normal speech. I sung the songs and then spoke the particular word. I concentrated on the single word in the song and compared the sound to the spoken word. I had a lot of trouble telling the difference. I think if I actually sung the song and someone cut just the one word out and played it back to people, many (maybe most or all) people would believe they are hearing a spoken word and not a portion of a song. They would require some additional part of the song (relationships to other notes in the song) to identify it as music.

When I hear the oboe's A before the orchestra tunes, I do not think of it as music. I think it's a note to tune by. Others may differ. When I hear one or more sounded notes from unintentional audio feedback, I do not think of those sounds as music. I think of them as feedback. When I hear a car horn, I do not think of it as music. I suspect there are many occasions when I would not think of a sounded note as music. I fully understand that others, some of whom are enormously more knowledgeable about music than I, may view those sounds as music.

Now I am not a musician. I'm a scientist, and I'm well aware that my views (and my colleague's) on science often differ significantly from those of non-scientists. I hardly pretend to speak for professionals on whether a single note is music. Maybe most musicians would tend to view single notes as music. I'm just aware that in many cases I would not feel that way.


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## ArtMusic

Has anybody composed one single note as a piece of composition?


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## SONNET CLV

ArtMusic said:


> Has anybody composed one single note as a piece of composition?


Do you mean other than Jobim, who wrote "One Note Samba"?

Check out this:


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## Guest

ArtMusic said:


> Has anybody composed one single note as a piece of composition?


Not sure about that, but LaMonte Young did write a composition based on *two* notes.


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## Guest

mmsbls said:


> My analogy focuses on my belief that music consists of relationships between sounds (and rests) just as geometric shapes, such as a triangle, consists of relationships between lines. In this sense the analogy is apt. But if one does not believe that music always consists of relationships between sounds, then they would certainly be free to consider a single sounded note as music.


Yes, of course we are all of us free to consider anything to be whatever we want. But to have a conversation, we need to do more than just exchange opinions. Maybe that's what's so wrong with almost every online exchange, that it is just that, an exchange. Of opinions. Mostly unsupported. And with the implication that the opinion "I" just stated (without supporting) is the right one, even if I acknowledge, explicitly, that there are other opinions.

Yes, of course there are other opinions. Now, what is it that makes yours better? That is, what is it that makes your expression of your opinions a valid and valuable exercise?



mmsbls said:


> When I hear the oboe's A before the orchestra tunes, I do not think of it as music. I think it's a note to tune by. Others may differ.


Yes, they may. But it's not that they may differ that's important. It's why. Why do others differ?

(If a composer decides to open an orchestral piece with the oboe playing A, is that part of the piece?)



mmsbls said:


> When I hear one or more sounded notes from unintentional audio feedback, I do not think of those sounds as music. I think of them as feedback. When I hear a car horn, I do not think of it as music.


Too bad for you. But again, to have a conversation about this, we're going to have to get past _that_ to _why._



mmsbls said:


> I suspect there are many occasions when I would not think of a sounded note as music. I fully understand that others, some of whom are enormously more knowledgeable about music than I, may view those sounds as music.


Yes. But that "enormously more knowledgeable" doesn't really count for anything, not really.



mmsbls said:


> Now I am not a musician. I'm a scientist, and I'm well aware that my views (and my colleague's) on science often differ significantly from those of non-scientists. I hardly pretend to speak for professionals on whether a single note is music. Maybe most musicians would tend to view single notes as music. I'm just aware that in many cases I would not feel that way.


But are your views on science any better than anyone else's? Does your professional expertise count for anything? It's my opinion that the sun is a hunk of frozen ice. Is that just as valid as any other opinion about the sun?


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## science

mmsbls said:


> When I hear the oboe's A before the orchestra tunes, I do not think of it as music. I think it's a note to tune by.


I really think the entire difference is nothing but intentionality. You know it's not intended as music, so you treat it that way.

A good example for this might be Coltrane's _Ascension_ because the first time I heard the beginning of that, I thought it sounded like a band warming up. Of course if you pay attention, it's nothing like a band warming up. Anyway, the thing is, even if it had been meant to sound like a band warming up, it's also meant as music, and people who enjoy listening to it perceive it as music. So the difference between between music and the sounds of a band warming up may be a matter of nothing but the intention of the performers.

I'm not personally sure of that, but I suspect intentionality is a pretty part of whatever the answer is.


----------



## science

I see that I got off on my own tangent and missed mmsbls's point, which was about the singleness of the note rather than whether it was meant as one thing or another. 

Whether a single note could be music, though, seems to me to come down to whether it would be meant to be music. 

Anyway, I think our focus on pitches is probably misleading. Most people would perceive a performance on a snare drum as music, even though in the most basic sense no pitch is involved. 

What I wonder is, what's the difference between that and the sound of rain hitting a surface that happens to sound like a snare drum? I guess we won't count the rain as music, even though there would be variations in volume, duration, and so on; but I think we would count a really abstract work for snare drum as music, even if it was a transcription of the sound of the rain. So all these reflections lead me over and over to intentionality.


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## SONNET CLV

some guy said:


> (If a composer decides to open an orchestral piece with the oboe playing A, is that part of the piece?)


It is in John Corigliano's Oboe Concerto. "Tuning Game", the first of the Concerto's five movements, plays on the typical pre-concert routine in which the oboe leads the tuning of the various orchestral sections. Out of the tuning sounds emerges a dark and strange little tune in the oboe.

See: http://www.allmusic.com/composition/concerto-for-oboe-mc0002386865


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## Serge

Well, you blowing your nose in a handkerchief, that's pretty much the boundary of music.


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## millionrainbows

mmsbls said:


> My analogy focuses on my belief that music consists of relationships between sounds (and rests) just as geometric shapes, such as a triangle, consists of relationships between lines. In this sense the analogy is apt. But if one does not believe that music always consists of relationships between sounds, then they would certainly be free to consider a single sounded note as music......I hardly pretend to speak for professionals on whether a single note is music. Maybe most musicians would tend to view single notes as music. I'm just aware that in many cases I would not feel that way.


Then you are missing the point if you do not consider LaMonte Young's "single note" compositions as music. Some of Young's compositions involve the harmonics of one single note; others involve setting up sine wave generators, each playing one continuous note, and as you walk around the room, you begin to hear interference patterns and phase cancellations and phase reinforcements, which cause the notes to appear to move through your head, and around the room in various locations. Phase location is the basic premise that stereo recording and playback is based on.

As the North Indian saying goes, "All music can be understood in the comprehension of one note."

All of Western tonality is based on the relationship of a fundamental tone to its constituent harmonics.

Are you denying the ultimate primacy of the single note, and how all music springs forth from this single sound?

How can you presume to imply, by what you have said, that LaMonte Young's compositions are 'not music?'

This sounds like hubris to me.

*Humble yourself before the altar of the White Goddess!*


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## millionrainbows

ArtMusic said:


> Has anybody composed one single note as a piece of composition?



 

   

[URL="http://www.amazon.com/Second-Dream-High-Tension-Line/dp/B00000E7BQ/ref=sr_1_3?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1404230092&sr=1-3&keywords=LaMonte+Young"]  


 


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## mmsbls

some guy said:


> Yes, of course there are other opinions. Now, what is it that makes yours better? That is, what is it that makes your expression of your opinions a valid and valuable exercise?


Nothing makes mine better. In fact I freely admit that mine do not have the background associated with many years practicing, discussing, and thinking about music as some other opinions do. I probably should not have said "enormously more knowledgeable" but rather born of many years of deliberate thought amongst many practitioners.



some guy said:


> (If a composer decides to open an orchestral piece with the oboe playing A, is that part of the piece?)
> 
> Too bad for you. But again, to have a conversation about this, we're going to have to get past _that_ to _why._


Yes, every note of a work is part of the piece. I am just saying that I believe music, _for me_ consists of intentional sounds by the creators with relationships between those sounds including rests. I assume my views come from what I have thought is music throughout my life. No one ever remarked on a single note to me and spoke of it as music. I guess in the big picture it's not that important. My view on single notes or intentionality will not change music performances nor will it change how I respond to single notes or non-intentional sounds that others might view as music. I might sit by a bubbling brook thinking the sounds are lovely and musical but not music while my friend sitting next to me feels exactly the same except that she believes the sounds are music.

Back in 1900 no one believed in the quantum description of reality. It took many years and an enormous amount of data to really convince physicists that the world was truly quantum mechanical. Most people today would laugh at or dismiss a fully quantum description perhaps in a similar way to how some people might dismiss at 4'33". Cage thought long and hard about sounds and music and wrote 4'33". He realized that it was controversial and knew many would not understand. Now music is not physics, but new ideas can be difficult to assimilate especially for those not immersed in the details. Maybe someday I will come around to a more open view of the definition of music. Maybe not.



some guy said:


> But are your views on science any better than anyone else's? Does your professional expertise count for anything? It's my opinion that the sun is a hunk of frozen ice. Is that just as valid as any other opinion about the sun?


Yes. People pay me to consult on technical issues because the vast majority of people would not give them answers that work well. For example, most people could not help design an electric car that works. If a business makes products that do not work, that business will not make money. Most people care about that. The opinion that the sun is a hunk of frozen ice does not explain essentially all the data from the sun - luminosity, surface temperature, elemental composition, color, etc. In that sense it may be as valid as other opinions, but it is not as valid as experimentally tested scientific theories.


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## mmsbls

millionrainbows said:


> Then you are missing the point if you do not consider LaMonte Young's "single note" compositions as music. Some of Young's compositions involve the harmonics of one single note; others involve setting up sine wave generators, each playing one continuous note, and as you walk around the room, you begin to hear interference patterns and phase cancellations and phase reinforcements, which cause the notes to appear to move through your head, and around the room in various locations. Phase location is the basic premise that stereo recording and playback is based on.


I guess we have to define a single note. I was thinking about a single note which does not vary and ceases after a relatively short time (say a few seconds). I looked for Young's compositions, but the ones I found all seem to include more than one note or have variation in the sounds. Are there any that are single short notes without variation in the amplitude or frequency?



millionrainbows said:


> How can you presume to imply, by what you have said, that LaMonte Young's compositions are 'not music?'
> 
> This sounds like hubris to me.


I'm not sure if I would consider any of his compositions "not music". I've yet to hear any that I don't consider music. If I did, it certainly may be ignorance, but it's hardly hubris. I'm just trying to think about music - not make pronouncements of truth. You and many others have spent many more years than I in this endeavor. I assume Cage, Young, and others thought very long and hard about what they wanted to create and why. I also assume that not everyone in the classical music community immediately thought, "Of course, why didn't I think of that!" I'd like to understand why a single, short note would be considered music. It's not obvious at all to me. I'm perfectly happy to accept the "music establishment" view on the matter, but much more importantly for me is why. It may be hard to give a complete answer here on the forum because it likely involves a history of thought on the subject.


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## SONNET CLV

Serge said:


> Well, you blowing your nose in a handkerchief, that's pretty much the boundary of music.


Hey ... I saw this piece performed in Pittsburgh, by the conductor right before he stepped on the podium to conduct a piece by Mahler. Funny ... it wasn't listed in the program.


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## Guest

millionrainbows said:


> This sounds like hubris to me.


Hubris? Nonsense.



> Then you are missing the point if you do not consider LaMonte Young's "single note" compositions as music.


I see mmsbls has responded, for himself, but I would add that I don't see the point he was making is in any way a comment on LaMonte Young (if the version I've found is anything to go by).

The whole 'one note' thing originated first from the idea of taking one or two notes out of a much larger piece. It was the questions posed by Sonnetclv to ArtMusic that set this going (which Artmusic didn't answer, and I did, though Sonnet hasn't responded further on that point.) It was not a discussion, as far as I recall, about whether an entire musical composition could be composed of a single note. Evidently, it can.


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## SONNET CLV

One note music? How about four pieces by the same fellow. I quote below from Wikipedia. Take from it what you will. (I prefer Jobim's "One Note Samba".)

----

Giacinto Scelsi (Italian pronunciation: [dʒaˈtʃinto ˈʃʃɛlsi]; 8 January 1905 - 9 August 1988) was an Italian composer who also wrote surrealist poetry in French.

He is best known for writing music based around only one pitch, altered in all manners through microtonal oscillations, harmonic allusions, and changes in timbre and dynamics, as paradigmatically exemplified in his revolutionary _Quattro Pezzi su una nota sola_ ("Four Pieces on a single note", 1959). His musical output, which encompassed all Western classical genres except scenic music, remained largely undiscovered even within contemporary musical circles during most of his life.


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