posted
I think it's quite brilliant, or was at its appearance. We do need to remember though that, like basically all postmodern trends, you can only do things like this ONCE.
*glares at all the Andy Warhol clones in her art department*
Posts: 8504 | Registered: Aug 1999
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posted
Apparently, the music is very interesting to READ, it isn't just a bunch of measure-long rests. Or so I've heard.
I went to a show for the band The Magnetic Fields, and they essentially did a variation of the piece for their encore. Of course, a bunch of yahoos in the crowd had to be obnoxious... THough some of the the comments were funny.
4 33 is not about "silence"...it is about a span of time in which the audience is supposed to listen. It just so happens that the performers are supposed to remain silent while the audience listens to what happens. Big difference.
In a live performance, there is hardly any "silence" at all. What you hear is the various audible reactions of your fellow audience members and anything else in your immediate environment.
Among other things, one of the points of it is to change your perspective on what you are actually hearing in a concert.
Back when it first happened, it was probably a lot more profound than it is now.
Posts: 194 | Registered: Mar 2003
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quote:The article said: In 2002 Cage's publishers launched a plagiarism suit against British musician Mike Batt, who had included a one-minute silence on an album by his rock group, The Planets. Batt agreed to pay an undisclosed six-figure sum to the John Cage Trust.
posted
I think I mentioned this a while ago, but I'll post the link here, in case anyone's interested. If you want some really fascinating background on this piece, click this. Make sure your sound is turned on.
posted
I went through John Cage when I was about 16 in this music school. At the time I found it fantastically annoying and asinine.
I still sort of do. I recall our teacher telling us that once when Cage was asked to give a speech he simply took out several of his favorite books and, using dice, would pick out random words and throw them all together. Then he went in front of people and read his speech.
Maybe I'm just closed minded, or old-fashioned, or am not up to the neo-deconstructionist existentialist post-modern intellectual avant-garde surrealist (insert fancy word) (you should probably insert a fancy word here, too) (sure, throw in another one here, too) movement, but I don't quite see the message to these methods. Or the method to this madness.
Another problem is that it invites too much speculation. I heard hundreds of theories as to what Cage's work meant: that the music was actually the sounds of the audience, that it was respecting the silence in between notes, that it was singifying the death of classical music, etc, etc, etc.
Maybe I'm just an old man in a college student's body.
Posts: 2258 | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
By the way, Ryuko, I listed the sound of the audience without reading your post. I know it's rude to reply with out reading all the posts, but admitting one minor rudeness acquits me of committing a major one.
But when my music professor heard that theory, he dismissed it entirely, by the way. He was all for respecting the silence thing.
Posts: 2258 | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
I had many of my undergrad professors give that interpretation. (The sound of the audience). I guess it all depends on who you ask.
One of my former professors who was good friends with Cage once wrote this wacky piece for 4 basses that he dedicated to him just a few years before he died.
Each of the bass players are on top of this huge map in the following format:
CA GE
Within each huge letter, there were several permutations of CAGE that each bass player was supposed to follow in some bizarre, indeterminate manner.
Anyway, the weird part of the story is that after about 45 minutes of this meandering/droning sound, he said some audience members started to leave.
So, the performers started to wind it all down and finish it thinking they had better quit before everyone left. Well, this particular professor was quite upset about this, because the audience getting fed up and leaving was one of his goals.
In case you were wondering, yes, he was a jerk.
In my day, I've seen just about every pretentious sort of nonsense at student composition recitals. One of my favorites was this guy who announced that his piece was dedicated to Sudan refugees (or something like that) and then preceeded to play his bassoon piece with its "oh so cliche" 7/8, 5/8 undergrad comp-major, Stravinski rip-off, "look at me, I know THIS many meters" junk piece.
I remember thinking: "wow, I bet those Sudan refugees are really thankful!".
I think that it is good for all musicians to give all the avant garde stuff an honest chance, but don't lose track of what made you want to become a musician in the first place.
posted
I hate bumping my own post, but this side moves so dag-blasted fast. Anyway, I sent the link to a few of my friends and got two replies. One, from my friend Jerry (who, btw, has the 5th book in the Homecoming series dedicated to him) wrote "It's got to be as good as most of the news the BBC broadcasts." The other apparently was a Cage fan and sent me this link . Interesting stuff.
Posts: 786 | Registered: Jun 2003
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yes, he was a jerk. 
