My biggest Budgie about Cage

[Thatfabulousalien]

Apart from people that are into the avant garde and fans of John's music, it seems 4'33 is ALL most people know about him ALTOGETHER 

[some guy]

Well, fortunately, that's all they complain about.

I think you'll be finding out that lots of people know his prepared piano pieces and even like them.

At least they're not complaining about Ryoanji or HPSCH. Nor are they complaining about Fontana Mix or Credo in US or Cartridge Music, which they easily could.

So. Could be worse.

[Monsieur Croche]

At least they're not complaining about Ryoanji or HPSCH. Nor are they complaining about Fontana Mix or Credo in US or Cartridge Music, which they easily could.

So. Could be worse.

"Could be worse."  Like complaining about some of 'our' more favorite Cage works, as listed above? ;-)

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

Natasha Barrett's pieces like 'A Soundwalk through Shanghai' seem to me to be the kind of music that spawned from the Cage/Oliveros ideas about music and sound in the 1940s. I really like listening to things like that. I also like listening musically to whatever sounds are happening in environment I am in. If people are complaining about music like this...........well, I just don't wish to involve myself in other people's complaints. I'm happy to tell people what music I like but that doesn't say anything much about anything really. Cage's output is so varied that it's pretty much impossible not to find something that people like.

It's okay not to know much about his enormous and varied output. Cage enthusiasts aren't the most common type of music fans out there. The best thing we can do is share our enthusiasm and other people may listen to a wider variety of Cage compositions if they so choose based on our recommendations.

[GioCar]

It's okay not to know much about his enormous and varied output. Cage enthusiasts aren't the most common type of music fans out there. The best thing we can do is share our enthusiasm and other people may listen to a wider variety of Cage compositions if they so choose based on our recommendations.

I'm one of those who know very little of Cage (but a bit more than 4'33 only  ) and I'm seriously considering of getting this



Anniversary 1912-2012 - The Number Pieces

Any thoughts? I don't think I have ever heard any of those pieces...

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

I'm one of those who know very little of Cage (but a bit more than 4'33 only  ) and I'm seriously considering of getting this



Anniversary 1912-2012 - The Number Pieces

Any thoughts? I don't think I have ever heard any of those pieces...

The Number Pieces are all magnificent creations.........very late Cage, and some of the most beautiful, meditative works he composed! I adore The Barton Workshop's recordings.

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

Ummmmmmmmm TFA.....why didn't you mention the Zen stuff then?

[San Antone]

I'm one of those who know very little of Cage (but a bit more than 4'33 only  ) and I'm seriously considering of getting this



Anniversary 1912-2012 - The Number Pieces

Any thoughts? I don't think I have ever heard any of those pieces...

Excellent set.  I purchased it a few months ago and recommend it for anyone interested in John Cage.

[Karl Henning]

I shouldn't be answering when I'm as tired as I am but I had a bad morning, not at top of my game but that's another story.

Oh! You want this thread, then  0:)

[PotashPie]

As we go further in time, and the Earth and its resources become a critical concern, and as we see how we have greatly damaged the world with our 'yang' ways, Cage and his aesthetic of non-bombastic creation, of letting things "go with the flow" will become more, not less, relevant as a way of doing things: the receptive, the passive, the yin, the relinquishing of the "ego," the ability to accept what is there.

[Monsieur Croche]

I think it is a huge mistake that even music conservatories and institutions of all places almost all see him exclusively as the "silence guy" and look the other way, when it comes to his other innovations. I think if Cage is to be mentioned at all there also needs to be far more context than what I have heard.

A class I am taking (which is kind of like musicology-ish) laid down the grounds for "what is music?" on the first lecture. This morning, 4'33 was brought up and had a ten minute discussion but they completely breezed over Cages other innovations. ... When 4"33 was brought up, there were no mentions of Zen Buddism or of the larger, esoteric spiritual concepts relating to the way we perceive our environments, etc. -- so it leaves me very dry.

...also someone called Cage a minimalist, which i found very grating    (not that I dislike minimalism either)

I can pretty much guarantee you four full academic years filled with exciting learning -- and a constant thirst because much of what interests you (and other comp students) is absent and will leave you feeling very dry.

You will also hear more comments like "Cage is a minimalist" from both peers, and other such fallacious and 'off' pronouncements from profs as well, which will all continue to grate.

Western music schools and conservatories, oddly enough, in undergrad at least -- are often completely lacking in a course, or sections of already extant courses, that cover anything remotely philosophical / aesthetic regarding the very craft you are studying.  Go figure.  One half-way acceptable rationale is that in those four years there is barely time for anything else than covering theory and history from the middle ages to the contemporary, performance and performance ensemble requirements, ear-training, music history, etc.  Me, I think any prof could 'fit it in there' in just about any required and extant  history or theory course, regardless if it is in the text.

You will find peers, and some profs, who have both the inclination and time to discuss these 'extra-musical' factors (because the topic is that essential, the air quotes are meant as sardonic) and maybe even a prof will deign to meet with a few of you regularly for an unofficial study-discussion group.  I think that is the best you can do, and get, for yourself. 

Remember, too, in a class or lecture, if you start controverting the profs, or pointing out the more glaring sins of omission in the course syllabus, the politics on that can close doors in your face.  Some things are not in the syllabus because what needs to be covered in one semester simply does not allow time for them.

A prof could, in private, bemoan with you about the superficiality of the text, or be miffed and feel personally criticized.  It can go any way, depending upon the people in your immediate environment: just take the air temperature of the local climate before you plunge.


Always best regards.

[some guy]

First of all, a thank you to million for a very perceptive remark.

Second of all, it's not necessarily a bad thing to refer to Cage as a minimalist. He did after all, write that piece that shall not be named, that is, to be sure, pretty minimal. And that piece was preceded and followed by other pieces which were similarly minimal. He was certainly never a "minimalist" in the popular sense, a sense that applies to such people as Glass, Reich, and Riley (three radically different composers with quite minimal (!) points of contact) and also a bunch of other people, most prominently from the Netherlands and from Lithuania. (And also, oddly enough, by a John Adams who doesn't seem to have been any sort of minimalist, not really, but who did use some repetition in some pieces that got really popular, oddly enough. Be fair, if that's what it takes to make a piece "minimal," then the Offertorium of Berlioz' requiem is more minimal than anything Adams ever wrote.

Cage was never anything like that kind of minimalist. He was however very much like the kind of minimalists that Tom Johnson identified as such at an event in Greenwich Village in 1972. And even there, early on, Tom noticed that the three pieces he covered in his review illustrated three different kinds of minimalism. Certainly after that everyone noticed that the term could cover an un-namable piece from twenty years before, among other things. For me, the thing that grates is that the very narrow definition of minimalism that Michael Nyman first floated in 1968 (but didn't really make prominent until 1974) is the only thing that practically anyone thinks of when they hear the term. So a whole various world of very different kinds of things, but all connected by the idea that one doesn't have to have a lot of things going on all the time to make something powerful and interesting, is practically invisible, replaced by the idea of repetition, which is the only kind of minimalism that became famous for some reason. Now that, for my money, is what is truly grating. For every 20,000 people who have heard of Glass or Adams, maybe only one or two have ever heard of Johnson or Radigue.

Of course, there are also repetitive minimalists like Kutavičius and Mažulis who are equally unknown, the latter of whom makes Reich and Glass seem like mere dabblers. And what about Tony Conrad? Huh?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=td4N0DofOMI

From 1964, before the term was applied to music. Interesting how often that's happened. "Classical music" not applied to music until 1810, thirty-five years after the so-called beginning of that era. "Baroque" not applied to music until almost three hundred years after that era was over.

[Karl Henning]

. . . the latter of whom makes Reich and Glass seem like mere dabblers.

Dude, the preferred nomenclature is note-spinners 

[some guy]

 

[nathanb]

Apart from people that are into the avant garde and fans of John's music, it seems 4'33 is ALL most people know about him ALTOGETHER 

Surely this is your biggest problem with Cage's critics, not with Cage himself? That's the only way it makes sense to me...

And yes, it is probably the number one problem with Cage's critics.

[PotashPie]

After reading the liner notes to The Freeman Etudes (2 CDs on Mode, with Irvine Arditti playing), I was amazed to see the Cage had presented us with this set of etudes that are "maximalist." In other words, the entire set of etudes is notated precisely down to the last detail, using that sort of complex notation that Boulez and Stockhausen are known for; complex rhythms "nested" in ratio brackets, huge leaps, almost impossible to play.

Yet, the result is all-Cage: he chose the notes via a random process, using the I-Ching, which is sort of like Chinese dice. Irvine Arditti is the only player who has come close to playing these Etudes successfully, after violinist Paul Zukofsky, whom the work was written for, gave up in mid-stream, declaring these etudes humanly impossible to play. Irvine Arditti saw this as a new challenge, and stepped in to play, and enable Cage to finish composing the Etudes. This kind of thing amazes me about Cage; when you think you have defined him, he slips through your fingers like water.

[Crudblud]

I've been reading the Tao Te Ching lately, which I'm aware had some influence on Zen Buddhism. Aside from the political commentary in the text, so much of its "do that which consists in doing nothing" philosophy brings Cage to mind.

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

I love doing nothing but i can't get very far in life doing nothing.......

[Mandryka]

What's a budgie?

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

What's a budgie?

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=What%27s+a+budgie%3F