Modern Composition John Cage

Originally Posted by SSC

Hah, well, I personally think a lot of the art world is nonsense, when it comes to money, exhibitions, etc. So, in a sense, I agree with you there. But! It still shouldn't discourage anyone to try to do what they can, or want.

Oh, btw, Cage DID study "proper" music as well. He was a student of both Cowell and Schoenberg, both very entrenched in classical theory, etc etc. He just opted to do different things.

No you're right. Sorry, I came across as a bit of an arse there. I don't want to stop people from doing what they want, but I just think its a little bit offensive when people start getting 'critically acclaimed' for something that anybody could have done. I mean, when I hear someone say that John Cage is their favourite composer, it essentially means that they don't care about the skill and talent required to make good musical composition. It's like somebody with no talent winning a talent show, it wouldn't be fair.

Oh by the way, Schoenberg had nothing good to say about Cage's musical abilities.

Originally Posted by almacg

No you're right. Sorry, I came across as a bit of an arse there. I don't want to stop people from doing what they want, but I just think its a little bit offensive when people start getting 'critically acclaimed' for something that anybody could have done. I mean, when I hear someone say that John Cage is their favourite composer, it essentially means that they don't care about the skill and talent required to make good musical composition. It's like somebody with no talent winning a talent show, it wouldn't be fair.

Oh by the way, Schoenberg had nothing good to say about Cage's musical abilities.

Well, I can understand what you mean, but even so. If Cage's music has the power to move someone, even if it's only one person, he is just as good as a composer as any. If his art has made anyone think, then he's done good. People need more thinking, and less automatic formulas writing their music.

Also:

Although Schoenberg never complimented Cage on his compositions during these two years, in a later interview he said that none of his American pupils were interesting, except Cage: "Of course he's not a composer, but he's an inventor—of genius."

from: John Cage - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (With sources!)

Screw being a composer, I'd like to be an inventor of goddamn genius!

Originally Posted by SSC

Screw being a composer, I'd like to be an inventor of goddamn genius!

It has a nice ring to it!

Hmm, I don't think the power to move people in and of itself is necassarily an act of composition. I've been moved by many things that aren't necassarily music related. The news moves me - to anger (!) - but it's not composition!

Originally Posted by almacg

It has a nice ring to it!

Sure does, means nothing but sounds so pretty. Though, I'm sure Schoenberg meant something positive with that, after all, he was pretty vocal about crap he didn't like.

Almacg: You made some good points on other threads (even if we disagree about the whole "atonality" thing), so I respect your opinion. But I can't help saying "Nonsense!" to the whole "art is ability" idea. I agree with SSC. Art doesn't have to be "hard to write" for it to have any value. In fact, "how hard it was to write" means nothing at all. Writing a complex serialist quadruple-fugue in sonata form doesn't make good art. The creative act does.

Admittedly, if you can't write notes or constantly write high C's for the contrabassoon your artistic ideas might just not come through because you can't articulate them. But as long as your abilities suffice to put your ideas into effect to the maximum extent, I see no problem.

I don't care about how something was written (unless that is part of the artistic concept). I don't care about talent or skill. I care about the music.


(Apart from all that, I don't believe anyone could have written 4'33'', even if they technically were easily able to. But John Cage was someone who had learned to listen all the time, something not many musicians do. One of my teachers told me how he had seen Cage standing at a tram station in the middle of the street, like in a trance, totally absorbed by listening to the sounds around him. The ability and readiness to listen is one of the abilities I admire most in musicians. 4'33'' was a logical consequence of years of listening.)

Oh just like to add one of many experiences of John Cage that brought him to 4' 33". H e was invited by scientist to a chamber which soundproofed ALL external sound yet he heard two pitches. He asked the scientist why. The scientist told him the two pitches were produced by your own body (one of them interestingly fomr the nervous system).

I don't think a performance of 4'33" is much different than a picture of a landscape, or of a nature scene, or perhaps of a busy city street, etc. The photographer didn't make those scenes, he simply captured them. It is the interpretation of this capture that makes it art, and I believe that's what John Cage was intending to do with 4'33". He was capturing the naturally occurring sounds that lived during those four minutes and thirty three seconds, as if that was the frame of his picture--leaving it up to the audience to decide what to make of those sounds, or what to make of the piece, or to fall asleep, etc.

Is it music? If you want it to be.

Originally Posted by DrumUltimA

I don't think a performance of 4'33" is much different than a picture of a landscape, or of a nature scene, or perhaps of a busy city street, etc. The photographer didn't make those scenes, he simply captured them.

I think something like 4'33" is more analogous with being in a landscape or standing on a busy street. It's not like a photograph or a painting (with is simply a representation of the moment); but more like, say, a sculpture (to continue to visual art parallel) - you experience the sculpture in real-time, in that moment, and you can affect the sculpture (by changing your position, the sculpture changes too). Things that don't really happen with static arts like a painting.

Originally Posted by robinjessome

I think something like 4'33" is more analogous with being in a landscape or standing on a busy street. It's not like a photograph or a painting (with is simply a representation of the moment); but more like, say, a sculpture (to continue to visual art parallel) - you experience the sculpture in real-time, in that moment, and you can affect the sculpture (by changing your position, the sculpture changes too). Things that don't really happen with static arts like a painting.

yeah, i guess you're right. I guess the point I'm trying to make is he is capturing that specific moment in time and leaving it up to interpretation. But yeah, it's definitely a much more "active", and even interactive scene he is capturing.

This is the dumbest thing I've heard (or didn't hear).

You know when I was 10 years old or maybe even younger I was thinking "heh imagine if I'd compose a piece entirely out of rests" and there we go someone did it... If I had the idea when I was 10 does that make me a good composer?