Talk:John Cage
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[edit] 4'33" not as music?!?!?!?
I was horrified to find 4'33" flippantly described as not music? As this was one of the main POINTS of cages music (that silence dosen't exist and in fact anything can be music when listening 'properly') it seems heretical.
John
p.s.when I have the time (and so long as no-one argues the case against) I will correct this sillyness somewhat equivalent to an article on religion stating "it's something to do with god" —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.13.164.79 (talk • contribs) .
- Which is the part you have a problem with -- the paragraph that begins "It is a potential problem..."? I don't see it stated anywhere exactly in the article that 4'33" is "not music". It is stated that the piece "challenges the definition of music" which I think is a fair statement. Feel free to correct anything you think is wrong. Antandrus (talk) 00:59, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
- Linkin this paragraph of the text it to the rest of the article which it somehow oppose, it say not that it is 'not sound', but that sound is not what is composed. The opposite view is already there, in the text.
[edit] Middlebury College Visit
How do I add link and another page? Could someone do this for me? Here is a memory that's worth posting, so that readers gain a sense of Cage's style and devil-may-care approach. Even in his later years, he shared enthusiasm for pushing the envelope. Here is the content of a Middlebury College visit made in the early 1980s:
Middlebury College Visit -- John Cage, early 1980s
John Cage remained vibrant and experimental in his later years, taking advantage of all his performance experiences. During the early 1980s, he and Merce Cunningham visited Middlebury College for several days. As an active music department devotee, I worked with Cage in several sessions.
First, he gathered some 20 of us for a performance. We were assigned time periods based on I-Ching selections he made then. I brought along a hair dryer and decided to turn it on/off for my contribution. After the performance, he was concerned that my hairdryer was performed in too regular and predictable a pattern.
Of course, we also heard a fully-prepared piano performance from Cage. That was quite interesting, especially to the pianists present (including myself). What surprised me were the lovely sounds, which did not play off the dissonance and new scales of Cage's peers. Utterly original and pleasing.
Then, Cage showed us mesostics. The idea was to take a word, in this case Satie. He read Satie's writings, and plucked words from them each time a word contained a letter in Satie's last name. So the first word that had an "S" was selected first, the next word with an "A" was next, and so forth. Those words were recorded on index cards.
What next? At the large public concert that evening, Cage and Cunningham were performing jointly. There was a Cunningham dance troup at Middlebury too, and some 10-15 dancers on stage. The music was performed by Cage. He sat in the left corner of the stage, at a small desk, reading the Satie mesostics created earlier. Often he would sort the cards, and fan them as if playing with a 52 piece deck. Great sounds.
At first, the packed auditorium sat politely. After some time, one heard rufflings and rumblings. Eventually, folks politely slipped out of the auditorium. But it took at least 45 minutes for that movement to begin. Perhaps half the audience remained throughout the performance.
The next day, the music department devotees met with Cage again. He declared the concert a success. His purpose was to create reaction and participation, and he achieved that with splendor. Cage was fairly serious about this performance, so we were not laughing. But performances should be enjoyable and fun...and he achieved that without effort.
What a memory. Please share your own experiences with Cage here as well. Thanks.
- Head to Wikipedia:Village Pump for questions about editing and how to link to external pages. --Dante Alighieri 21:55 19 May 2003 (UTC)
[edit] Expanded
I've expanded this quite a lot, but it still needs a lot more and it'll need some more strucutre as it grows (I'm thinking of dividing it up into periods rather than separating biography from music, which seems a bit artificial in the case of Cage). The pieces mentioned at the end are the ones I hope to write about more in the future - it shouldn't just suddenly stop at 4'33" as it does now. I'm pretty sure about my facts, but I've not checked all of them, I admit (I re-reading Cage's books, so I'll do this as I go along). --Camembert
[edit] Naming conventions: 4'43"
Following my earlier query about how to name articles about pieces of classical music (the responses to which I'm very grateful for, and still chewing over), I've got another problem in that area: I want to write an article about the John Cage piece 4'33", but it looks like article titles cannot have quotes in them, so 4'33" doesn't work. Is there any way round this? There are alternative names for the piece (it could be spelled out in words, for example), but this form is by far the most common, and I'd like to use it if at all possible. --Camembert 18:22 Sep 30, 2002 (UTC)
How does 4'43" (coded as [[4 43|4'43"]]) strike you? Ortolan88 18:44 Sep 30, 2002 (UTC)
Yes, I know I can use a pipe, and if it comes to that, I will (though I'll probably point it to Four Minutes, Thirty-Three Seconds rather than 4 33). But what I was really trying to ask, in a round about way, was: is there any way to use a " in an article title? --Camembert 23:20 Sep 30, 2002 (UTC)
How about [[4'33'']] as a quick cheat, with two ' for a " -- Tarquin 23:29 Sep 30, 2002 (UTC)
It might just work that, it might just work. Rather amusingly, however, if you try to surround the link with two 's to italicize it (as those tyrants at the Manual of Style will say you should, hem hem), it breaks the link, and italicizes one set of brackets instead. And I would be a bit worried about people trying to link to the article but not being able to work out that it's two 's rather than one ". But I can use html tags to italicize, and I don't see anybody else round here writing about John Cage, so... --Camembert 00:23 Oct 1, 2002 (UTC)
- (above from village pump archive) I take it you never made that page, Camembert? Martin
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- Not yet, but you know, for me a nine month gap between saying I'm going to do something and actually doing it is not unusual ;-) Seriously, I've been thinking about that (potential) article again recently, and if I ever do make it, I think I'm going to go with Tarquin's suggestion of [[4'33]] (with two apostrophes for a double quote). I'll do it, any day now... --Camembert
I don't see the need for all this substitution and fudging. Why not just use 4′ 33″ (which is, after all, the piece's actual name)? --Paul A 15:55 Apr 20, 2003 (UTC)
- Because the software doesn't recognise those characters. Try clicking on the following link and seeing what it gets turned into: 4′ 33″ --Camembert
[edit] Pomona book
I don't understand the story about the Pomona book. What happened? -- Error 03:45, 14 Aug 2003 (UTC)
- Presumably the book Cage saw everyone reading was a set text - Cage read a completely different and randomly chosen book and still passed the class - 'if I can get away with that', he thinks, 'there's something wrong with the way things are run here' (or maybe, 'If they're making everybody read this one book for no reason...'). I suppose that's the point of the story. I'm not sure how this can be clearer in the article, to be honest... --Camembert
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- That version makes more sense. If it is certain that the book was a text one, it should be mentioned in the article. -- Error
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- I don't know that it was for sure - I'm just surmising that it must have been. As far as I know, Cage doesn't make it any more explicit than we have it in the article now (though I've only seen Cage's comments on this in fragments, so I don't know for sure). --Camembert
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- I've found a reputable-looking source that says: "...at exclusive Pomona College... he rebelled against the rigid textbook-based system, revising for exams by reading materials chosen randomly..."
(Warning: large pdf file. The bit I quoted is on page 16.)
—Paul A 11:15, 16 Aug 2003 (UTC)
- I've found a reputable-looking source that says: "...at exclusive Pomona College... he rebelled against the rigid textbook-based system, revising for exams by reading materials chosen randomly..."
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- I can't get to that .pdf for some reason, but I believe you - I'll fiddle with the article a little bit. --Camembert
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[edit] Batt lawsuit
Somebody wrote: "In 2002, British songwriter Mike Batt released an album containing a track called A one minute silence. The estate of Cage launched a lawsuit against Batt, claiming it infringed the copyright of the earlier Cage work. The case was settled out of court for a large undisclosed sum."
This ought to be changed, though I personally do not know the matter well enough. Batt was not - not - claimed to have infringed Cage's copyright because of the silence itself, but because he added Cage as a co-composer for it. The track possibly was presented like "A one minute silence (Batt/Cage)" or in similar ways added Cage's name to it, which is a very different deal.
Personally, I'd see it deleted entirely, but if it is to stay, facts should be clearified.
Even if it is an interesting case in respect of the law involved, I still do not think there is any good reasons for keeping it in the article.
- I agree: I think this is more an issue of intellectual property and copyright laws pertaining to music. --bleh fu talk fu 14:15, Jan 21, 2005 (UTC)
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- Disagree. It is still relevant to the article, although I'd be happy to see the facts presented in a clearer way as suggested quercus robur 21:52, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)
This copyright issue is less about music than about issues of appropriation (in addition to law). The whole point of appropriation is that one use anothers work and - hopefully - add to it. Batt clearly credited Cage as co-composer (but I am not sure if he added anything to it, rather he reduced it to a question of silence - a minute digital silence has very little to do with a performed 'make no sound'). Hadn't he credited Cage, I doubt there would be a lawsuit - Cutler added silent track(s?) on his release of an AMM album (or maybe AMM did that themselved) - doubtlessly in honour of Cage - and there were no lawsuit there. In my opinion Carthago should be destoyed and the Batt lawsuit taken out of the article.
- Seems the text about Batt lawsuit is out, but I'd like to bring up some facts: On the album Classical Graffiti by the Planets, described as an eight piece classical crossover band, a track is named 'A One Minute Silence (After Cage)' credited to Mike Batt. The album seem to contain many tracks similarly named and thus probably are arrangements of Rodrigo, Bach, Debussy, Ravel, Bizet and Cage.
[edit] External links
Can someone please forward the Wikipedia: policy page regarding advertising with external links. I find the links in "Sites inspired by Cage's work" of dubious value to the article, especially the last one. --bleh fu talk fu June 30, 2005 14:13 (UTC)
