The Future of Music?

[Thorolf]

Originally Posted by some guy

This is very nicely put:

I can't think of a better way of putting it. It sounds really as if you and I and Reich agree about what art is, and only disagree about which pieces qualify. I'm good with that.

I also think what you just said justifies 4'33" as well as anything I've said about it. With your kind permission, I'll make that my answer to your last question!

Feel free to use it as you wish! However, I still don’t see how my core request is filled:

Originally Posted by Thorolf

[T]hat the composer has skills, has to be communicated through the work of art, otherwize, it’s nothing more than randomness, […]

Please tell me just how describing 4 minutes and 33 seconds of not playing, and presenting it as a musical composition, conveys any more thought and imagination than a five-year-old refusing to eat his vegetables.



Regards

[Ron Ofir]

It's quite simple, actually: A five-years-old makes a whole lot more noise!

Good discussion you got here, interesting ideas...

[reith]

Originally Posted by Thorolf

...... However, I still don’t see how my core request is filled:
Please tell me just how describing 4 minutes and 33 seconds of not playing, and presenting it as a musical composition, conveys any more thought and imagination than a five-year-old refusing to eat his vegetables.



Regards

But surely the amount of thought it actually conveys depends on the attendee. To me it conveyed insight (which isn't thought - not pretending that) then planning and an awareness that many of my co-listeners would listen, some for the first time.

At least, it led me to wonder of Cage's insights in what public performance was about. Where does a concert performance begin and end? When you see the ad in the press? Buy the tickets? When the performer emerges from the wings? And does it end with the receding of the applause? The discussion afterwards? Dismissal and going to the pub? What is the sum-total of a performance? (A question that has concerned me with live gigging - and the difference between a live concert with its many human interferences, and the sterility of music recorded in a studio for private listening.)

The child, depending on the frequency of this event will probably strategise then extemporise. It's more of a chamber performance perhaps a battle of wills, perhaps dependent on who is present. It may be less indeterminate that 4'33", depending on how often it has been rehearsed.

They're both performances however.

[chckn8r]

Originally Posted by reith

They're both performances however.

Although, as I stated before, that I admire Cage's philosophy behind the piece, I'm in agreement with Thorlof that it's strongly questionable that this is a "musical composition". Skill, imagination - all that comes into it, but IMHO, there's also a measure of replicating some originally intended performance. With 4'33", there's none of that - it's all random (except for the sheet music and the stopwatch).

Saying that the "audience is the performer" is a cop-out - if I'm a performer, then why am I not getting a cut of the gate ticket sales? I put 4'33" down as a statement of philosophy and nothing more - I don't see it as a musical performance or art for that matter.

[stevel]

Although, as I stated before, that I admire Cage's philosophy behind the piece, I'm in agreement with Thorlof that it's strongly questionable that this is a "musical composition".

In other discussions, it seems most people agree that it is not "music" per se, but aome other type of hybrid form that uses sound as one of it's main componenents.

Skill, imagination - all that comes into it, but IMHO, there's also a measure of replicating some originally intended performance. With 4'33", there's none of that - it's all random (except for the sheet music and the stopwatch).

But interestingly enough, I've seen people perform it wrong. I.e., obviously not what we believe Cage to have intended. From that view, if you can make a mistake, there must be a correct way, and that implies some sense of repeatability, even on the most obscure levels.

Saying that the "audience is the performer" is a cop-out

I think a better way of putting it is that the audience is the composer. That is, each individual audience member decides to "create" an aural experience based on the sounds they hear within a given time-frame within a given space.

What makes this different than me going out in the backyard and "deciding to hear" the sounds I hear "as a composition" is that people gather in the same space, or set aside the time to experience this piece (I prefer putting it on my stereo and listening to it in headphones :-).

I put 4'33" down as a statement of philosophy and nothing more - I don't see it as a musical performance or art for that matter.

I'll leave you with this thought, which probably demands another thread.

Oh screw it, I'll start another thread...
Steve

[MisterEnt]

H'oh man... this certainly is a can of worms...

I just don't know anymore. I'd like to think that I can look at the Mona Lisa and some paint a bohemian hipster just splattered all over the ground and himself and say: "Art. Not art." But while that idea is comforting, I'm beginning to realize that's it's all together impossible. There is too much modern art that is completely stupid (like Duchamp's infamous "Fountain"), and yet when I begin to think of why anyone in the right mind would do such a thing and pass it off as art... it just fascinates me! It puts my mind in a place where I'm considering it, where I'm trying to understand. And that's what I do with all art. Does that make it art? I don't know; everything's such a gray area nowaday. Which is wonderful, but it's definitely not the easiest thing for the human race to deal with.

As has been mentioned, art comes down to two things: skill and idea. People have little trouble accepting 'high skill, no idea" art. Think of portrait painting: not a whole lot of idea going on there, but a lot of skill to get the realism and the effect, etc. The stuff that seems to get people going is the 'high idea, no skill' art. Think of 4'33'': absolutely no artful skill needed, but it's a rather profound idea that can change you. That makes people ornery though, because it thins out art... butter over too much bread, if you will. They have to start applying the term 'art' to everything that ever existed, because in everything there is some amount of idea and skill that goes into it. Today, it seems that the only prerequisite for art is that the creator point at his creation and shout, "Art! Art!"-- And even then it can just be the public (and not the creator) that perceives it as art, and thus, makes it art. What of that? What do we do? How do we label things? Do we need to? Is philosophy art? Is interior design art? Is science art? Are politics art? Is art even art??

Is your head spinning yet?

[stevel]

Please tell me just how describing 4 minutes and 33 seconds of not playing, and presenting it as a musical composition, conveys any more thought and imagination than a five-year-old refusing to eat his vegetables.

Just a quick note here. The piece is not 4'33'' long. It was at its premeire. BUt the "tacet" version of the score simply states that there are to be three movements, all "unplayed".

As to thought put into it. None obviously. But we can say the same about much pop music! So if we're going to call pop music music, we can certainly call 4'33'' music too (maybe it's pop music and not art music! :-)

Best,
Steve

[stevel]

There is too much modern art that is completely stupid (like Duchamp's infamous "Fountain"), and yet when I begin to think of why anyone in the right mind would do such a thing and pass it off as art..

.

Let's be careful here though. Yes, I agree that there is a lot of crap in modern art. But let's not forget that the past has had it's fair share of crap too.

The biggest concern for supporters of "crap" is that people unfairly label modern art crap not because it's crap, but because they have some preconceived notion of what "modern" means, and a prejudiced view that if it's not from the height of music (which they usually mean Mozart et al) then it's not art. The concern is that this gets used as a means to batter everything whether it's actually crap or not.

I have to admit, I don't know if I hate, or admire those artists who "pass off" things as you put it. I mean on one hand, I'm not going to stoop to such lows, but on the other hand, you gotta give them credit - I mean, if the art community is stuped enough to buy into it, they deserve what they get!

So I'm not so sure everyone's motives for creating the art are purely artistic - though I'd rather them be.

Think of 4'33'': absolutely no artful skill needed,

Wait a minute - think about this for a second - doesn't 4'33'' take an EXTREME amount of skill on the listener's part to be perceived as music?

I find that it takes a high degree of skill on my part to enjoy J-Lo as music.

The assumption that are takes the kind of skill you're talking about is a little narrow. There are some great 3 chord songs out there, and how much skill does it take?

So on whose part is the skill necessary - the composer, the performer, or the experiencer?


Steve

[some guy]

Stevel, at the risk of opening up a new can of worms, I'll point out that Cage thought about this piece for several years before 1952. It exists in several different versions, too. Tudor played it scrupulously at its premiere with a stopwatch, and, as he played it at the piano, it often gets called a piano piece. Then Cage added the instruction "for any instrument or group of instruments and can last any length of time."

Curious that no one's yet mentioned the piece that out four thirty threes 4'33", that is, 0'00". Some might prefer all new music to be of no duration, either, but "Oh, well."

4'33" came out of Cage's experience in an anechoic chamber in Berkeley. In it, he noticed two sounds, one high pitched, one low. The engineer explained that the high was Cage's nervous system and the low was his respiratory system. There is no such thing as the absence of sound, he concluded, and so came the notion that there are intentional sounds and unintentional sounds. Cage wanted to include the latter. He also figured that there's probably no such thing as noise, either. To put it pretty close to what he said, there's sound you attend to and sound you don't. The latter is what usually gets called noise. It's something that interfers with your enjoyment of something else. But what if you attend to the noise? Really listen to it? It turns into something interesting and enjoyable. Or at least the possibility exists.

So there, I hope not too briefly, is a precis of the "thought" that went into this piece. Does that help any?

[Ron Ofir]

The engineer explained that the high was Cage's nervous system and the low was his respiratory system

How could a nervous system make sounds? Interesting story, anyway.

There are some great 3 chord songs out there, and how much skill does it take?

It does take skill to make them better than the other 3 chord (or 20 chord) songs.