Modern Composition John Cage

I'm afraid I have to disagree with you there. The opposite of music is rap. :P

This is the worst post of this thread

haha, typical modernist, allways a interlectual interpretation and philoshopical thoughts!

Music = Music

Silence = Silence.

Music - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Nevermind, this is the worst post. Simen, I hope for your sake that you never use Wikipedia as a source in a research paper in college because you will get a big fat F. Of course, you'd actually have to make it that far......

There isn't a shorter version of the piece, because the piece Cage wrote has no defined length. It is a very common mistake that Cage actually wrote a piece called 4'33" and that it lasts 4'33".

Actually the piece just tells the performer to play three movements of TACET. The duration isn't specified and is up to the performer. The piece is called after how long the performer chooses to make it last.

At the world premiere it was played for 4'33'', so from then on it was generally called 4'33'', but actually it could also be called "two hours", "1 ms", or "a day", depending on how long the performer chooses to play.

No, that was a revised score for the piece. The original score that Cage submitted for publishing had 3 clearly defined movement lengths, and it was indeed supposed to be 4'33". Where did you get this story from?

You know, I'm actually kind of disgusted with this thread, the absolute ignorance of SimenN is astounding. I can understand not agreeing with the ideas of Cage, but the belligerence I just do not understand. I'M 17 I'M RIGHT AND I ALWAYS WILL BE RIGHT MUSIC MUST BE WHAT I SAY IT IS AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

I mean, seriously? SimenN, who are you to even make such crazy statements, you need to come back down to planet Earth, friend. I love people on the internet with big egos

No, that was a revised score for the piece. The original score that Cage submitted for publishing had 3 clearly defined movement lengths, and it was indeed supposed to be 4'33". Where did you get this story from?

Well, I don't know whether there was any preceding score, but this is the one I know:

The German Wikipedia site also states that David Tudor used dice at the first performance to determine the length of the piece, but I couldn't find any quote to back this up.

Nevermind, this is the worst post. Simen, I hope for your sake that you never use Wikipedia as a source in a research paper in college because you will get a big fat F. Of course, you'd actually have to make it that far......

I don't think the problem is citing wikipedia necessarily, but citing something that purports to define music.

This is the worst post of this thread

Nevermind, this is the worst post. Simen, I hope for your sake that you never use Wikipedia as a source in a research paper in college because you will get a big fat F. Of course, you'd actually have to make it that far......

No, that was a revised score for the piece. The original score that Cage submitted for publishing had 3 clearly defined movement lengths, and it was indeed supposed to be 4'33". Where did you get this story from?

You know, I'm actually kind of disgusted with this thread, the absolute ignorance of SimenN is astounding. I can understand not agreeing with the ideas of Cage, but the belligerence I just do not understand. I'M 17 I'M RIGHT AND I ALWAYS WILL BE RIGHT MUSIC MUST BE WHAT I SAY IT IS AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

I mean, seriously? SimenN, who are you to even make such crazy statements, you need to come back down to planet Earth, friend. I love people on the internet with big egos

Personal attacks are ALWAYS a good way to make your point.

There is an interesting subculture in this forum, i.e. piling on after the target of the piling-on is long gone. See also

http://www.youngcomposers.com/forum/italian-concerto-german-counterpoint-14193.html

There is an interesting subculture in this forum, i.e. piling on after the target of the piling-on is long gone.

What? :huh:

Personal attacks are ALWAYS a good way to make your point.

Who's making personal attacks? I'm stating the truth

I find 4'33'' beautiful in its own way. My experience of this piece is that it feels as if time freezes between the notes and you experience the silence which binds the music and the cosmos together. You are becoming aware of this silence and that you are in reality part of it. Some may say that it isn't music, but it is definitely "pre-music".

Alexandros

This isn't music, it isn't the Four Seasons by Vivaldi, all music must sound like that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So who is to say that John Cage wanted pure silence,

John Cage never said that 4'33" is "silence". He called it the "silent piece" only in quotes. If you read about his experience in the anechoic chamber in Harvard University you'll see that Cage doesn't really believe in silence. He doesn't even think we might actually find silence once we're dead, although that's only for him to know and us to find out now.

He doesn't even think we might actually find silence once we're dead, although that's only for him to know and us to find out now.

Come on people! Let's find out!

LOL

Come on people! Let's find out!

Oh, Heavens Gate.

I don't see how that was implied with that statement. Personally, in any case, I love Vivaldi.

Pretty much everyone here despises Vivaldi, it seems.

Oh please, Vivaldi is the shiznite. If I had the patience to perfect my piccolo playing (which I don't) I would love to play that double trumpet concerto in D at some point.

Why would you care what "people here" like? You do realize what bad taste some people have, right?

Hatred towards Vivaldi? Is there such a thing?

Lemme see

I haven't posted here in a while, and I guess it's sort of a weird thing, because I always get caught up in something, but when I never post, I'm like, damn I'm missing out.

(I read up to page 7 and gave up, for the record)

Anyway, what's music? I still don't know. I might not ever. I can call something music, but can someone not, and we're both correct? Can I record myself walking through New York City and call it music? What's ambient noise, then? Is there such a thing as noise? Is it just what sound isn't intentionally presented? Do I, then, make music by intentionally presenting it? Is creativity necessary in music? Or can I say nothing is music except what I call it? Same thing for art, I guess. Take a picture of a blank wall, and it can be called art... someone sees a blank wall though, and they walk right past it. Is art universal? Is art all around us, omnipresent, and only dormant, and only needs attention, intentional representation, to spring to life? Then, is everything presented automatically art? Does the creator's intention matter, and if so, will people change their minds when the creator changes his?

So many questions. Mmm.

wow...you've thought about this haven't you?

There are indeed a lot of questions there. :P

Which boils down to the question, is art define by the artist (i.e. the person who created this something which he calls "art"), the masses, or those few people who have studied the history of art throughout out history, but also the history and culture of other countries, continents and societies and who have a better understanding of the development of what was considered "art" in the past so that they can comment more validly on what is art today?

Which boils down to the question, is art define by the artist (i.e. the person who created this something which he calls "art"), the masses, or those few people who have studied the history of art throughout out history, but also the history and culture of other countries, continents and societies and who have a better understanding of the development of what was considered "art" in the past so that they can comment more validly on what is art today?

completely wrong.

art is not defined by any totalitarian (chosen ones) group. its definition is completely free flowing and being as heterogenous as possible. it doesn't require any encyclopedic knowledge to understand art, it doesn't require big numbers to appreciate art, it doesn't require to be an artist (in a narrow sense) to love works of art. art works, as all other works, are bound to be multiple (and being such have no universal index) and no ONESS ever has anything to do with art.

(though an artist really doesn't need no one to appreciate (save for the labeling it) his art, yet it is not definition(of art))

This thread is biting more than it can chew.

Next: what is life?

This thread is biting more than it can chew.

Next: what is life?

Now that's an easy question, and if you don't immediately know the answer you are not a true YCian.

42

On topic - I've recently become quite intereseted in music like John Cage's. In my opinion there doesn't seem to be a great deal of difference (in some of the concepts, the final results are vastly different) between some of the things he's done, and some of the things Robin and Nikolas have done, and are doing - and I have a great respect for all three of them.

Art is whatever the hell you want it to be.

"Art is whatever the hell you want it to be."

Although on the face of this I agree, it would be interesting to follow the line of reasoning through, perhaps as follows.

1. Art is whatever I want it to be.

2. Art can be anything.

3. Art can be everything: it is all embracing.

4. Art is everything: everything can be viewed as being a kind of art and seen from an artistic stanpoint.

5. Art is nothing: if everything is art, what is left that can be called art?

And this has become, in some ways, quite true. Because of the events of the 20th century, we have formulated a way of looking at the world that can turn whatever we see into art; hence Stockhausen's comments about 9/11 (before anyone gets into that, I think we can fairly say Stockhausen was a crackpot, and a mystic, but anyway).

I would not say however this line of reasoning is entirely true. Here's why: art is an industry, less so than the other industries (it has a large government and independant financial backing), but it is still a force on which many people's livelihoods depend. Money has to be made, somewhere. Therefore, if art is really everything, and therefore nothing, nothing can be sold as art. Instead, art has become whatever that is placed in the context of being art. I think this is what 4'33" really taps into: silence is an impossible thing for people who can hear; even in a perfectly soundproof room, we can hear the sound of our hearts and our bones and the nerves firing in our bodies. Sound surrounds us all the time. The way John Cage illustrates this is by creating a moment of silence, and therefore sound, at the point at which our ears are most carefully atuned to noticing sound, a concert. This sound becomes art because it is placed in the context of being art.

But more importantly, it is expressing this idea. The people have bought their tickets, found their seats, read their programmes, talked with their neighbours, only to be shown what they should have been noticing their entire lives. People going away complaining from such an experience seem to me to have missed the point.

For me, art does need to have boundaries. But the only boundary I can see, so far, is this one: Art is expression. The expression of an idea, as with Cage; a kinaesthesic feeling; beauty (or un-beauty); the power of systems and rules and structures; a narrative or scene; emotion; relationships; spacial, sonic, and/or visual balence/clarity for their own sake. The list can be extrapolated. But art is not anything and everything - if it were it would lose its meaning. Instead, Art is a powerful reminder of what things human beings have come to value, whether aesthetic, or more general in life as a whole, presented through expression. For me, this expression works best when I leave the theatre or art gallery or concert hall feeling enriched - a different person than the one that walked in. Art, at its most powerful, is the eternal transference of this expression.

L.

(laugh) I agree with you cynusdei, but I truly think that Cage's intention was for us to simply enjoy the sounds of life; the everyday sort of "noise", which is what many of us would call it, and find the beauty in it. Everyday it's nice to just sit a few moments and soak in your surroundings...

NO DAMN YOU

It isn't music, it doesn't sound like Brahms 4

GRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!