Modern Composition John Cage

*cough* Thomas Edison didn't invent the lightbulb. :thumbsup:

Yes he did.

Go check the wikip...

uh.

What were talking about again?

It's really quite unfortunate that most of the users of this forum cannot appreciate the work of John Cage. Not only is he one of the most important composers of the twentieth century, but he is one of the most influential composers in terms of notation. I challenge any user to find a composer who came after Cage who was not influenced in some way by his work, and moreover, find any piece making use of graphic notation where Cage doesn't pop his head out. 4'33" not only changed the face of music, as it introduced silence as one of the major components of any piece of music (and validating that space between movements in any work of music, from Bach to Shostakovich) and the use of rests in general, but we can thank Cage for changing the way we all look at art, whether or not some of us choose to acknowledge so.

As a sidenote: Silence has been always a fundamental building block in music, but it wasn't until Haydn (One of the later string quartets' end, with the pauses and repetitions) that it was treated as a functional musical element (though there are clear examples in baroque literature where silences were used to bring specific effects, etc etc.)

All composers would love to have their music play on after their death (even if it means they have to be reincarnated to appreciate it!). John Cage has written a piece that takes 300 or so years to perform! Clever sod...!

I'd be careful about any statement beginning with "all composers". Personally, I'm not sure if I want my music to be played after my death. Music is all about time and the events and structures within it, a succession of instantaneous experiences. As much as listening to a Beethoven CD can be a great experience, it is by no means comparable with experiencing music as it is made, as a unique passing moment. A life Beethoven concert has something of this, but even much more does a concert where recent pieces are played, possibly even for the first time ever.

I find something quite alluring about the idea that music ceases to exist the moment its composer dies, or even more radical, every composition ceasing to exist after the first performance, so that there only -are- first performances. Of course such a thing is impossible and it would require the readiness to let go of many great works for the audience.

Nevertheless I don't think music has to endure for all eternity. Like any other living thing, it dies. But there is so much to gain by actually going out and experience living music instead of conserves.

And I realize that I'm quite hypocritical. I have tons of CDs, a lot of them containing very old music. But I still wouldn't mind if my music was never played again after my death. I sometimes think that this view of myself comes from the fact that I got into music entirely through improvisation, which has stayed something important and special for me ever since.

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.

Kind of like ... reality TV?

I think the piece is more liking a movie than a picture, because you aren't just experiencing that one moment in time, you're experiencing the sounds and feeling of the place you're in for the performance of the piece.