Hey all, I’ve been working on removing a bunch of malicious lines of code from my site that I assume were put in through MySQL inject, but I’ve changed all my passwords just to stay safe, and hopefully keep YOU, my fellow readers too. If you’ve been visiting this website by typing the domain in the browser bar this shouldn’t affect you at all, traffic was only redirected if it was driven here through some referral link. Anyways, the malicious referral was stopped by the IP re-routing service since the resolving site was probably full of malware. So, I’m pretty sure those of you coming to the site in any way were safe, I just thought it would be good to be transparent about why those of you who arrived from google et. al weren’t able to get here!
For the time being thecirclesandlines.com will still have this referral issue until I can fix that (should take much less time) but afterwards I’ll be doing some construction on the websites to keep things a little safer, including child themes so I am not disinclined to update my themes and expose vulnerabilities and exploits. Hopefully I’ll get some of those posts on Krenek I promised soon! I have a stack of papers written by him to peruse through.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-4IhhWYejU[/youtube]
On one occasion, Schoenberg asked a girl in his class to go to the piano and play the first movement of a Beethoven sonata, which was afterwards to be analyzed. She said, “It is too difficult. I can’t play it.” Schoenberg said, “You’re a pianist, aren’t you?” She said, “Yes.” He said, Then go to the piano.” She did, She had no sooner begun playing than he stopped her to say that she was not playing at the proper tempo. She said that if she played at the proper tempo, she would make mistakes. He said, “Play at the proper tempo and do not make mistakes.” She began again, and he stopped her immediately to say that she was making mistakes. She then burst into tears and between sobs explained that she had gone to the dentist earlier that day and that she’d had a tooth pulled out. He said, “Do you have to have a tooth pulled out in order to make mistakes?”
Cage, J. (1961). Silence: Lectures and writings. Middletown, Conn: Wesleyan University Press. (265-66)
Schoenberg always complained that his American pupils didn’t do enough work. There was one girl in the class in particular who, it is true, did almost no work at all. He asked her one day why she didn’t accomplish more. She said, “I don’t have any time.” He said, “How many hours are there in the day?” She said, “Twenty-four.” He said, “Nonsense: there are as many hours in a day as you put into it.”
Cage, J. (1961). Silence: Lectures and writings. Middletown, Conn: Wesleyan University Press. (271)
Rule No. 7, ain’t that some Church.
This composition is a legend that is often quoted but hardly ever presented in its entirety. For the point is not merely that we now hear the noises of the concert hall as opposed to those of the instrument, as so often simple-mindedly explained – most recently by Douglas Kahn in his book Noise, water, Meat. A History of Sound in the Arts, which focuses primarily on the twentieth century. No, this work by Cage has three movements, just like a proper concerto. Of that we can easily convince ourselves simply by buying the score, which is still to be had for just a few euros. Cage writes in his introductory remarks that at the work’s premiere in 1952 the pianist indicated the three movements by opening and closing the piano lid. He can also put his fingers to the keys but then not start playing. The idea is therefore not that we hear exclusively noises in the short span of time – less than five minutes – but also that we continue to see, that we remain in the image of the concert hall, that we continue to watch the instrumentalist, who has not been eliminated. Though the demarcation of and division into three musical movements, corporeality is staged – the corporeality of the interpreter and of the instrument. The piano lid opens opens, or the hands stop… The instrument is affected. Three whole times, it becomes the producer of possible sound. We remain in the picture, [and] concentrate our perception…
- Schulz, B., & Stadtgalerie Saarbrücken. (2002). Resonanzen: Aspekte der Klangkunst = Resonances : aspects of sound art. Heidelberg: Kehrer., In the essay: Marcel Duchamp, John Cage, and an art history of noise
The “image of the concert hall” haunts what 4’33” tries to accomplish, it is an inherent limitation on the kinds of sounds that the audience can listen to! Because of this choice, Cage’s compositional ego will always be involved in the performance, pulling the audience towards himself, what his writings constantly condescend.
Let us say in life: No earthquakes are permissible. What happens then?
- Cage, J. (1961). Silence: Lectures and writings. Middletown, Conn: Wesleyan University Press. (133)
Unfortunately, European thinking has brought it about that actual things that happen such as suddenly listening or suddenly sneezing are not considered profound.
- Cage, J. (1961). Silence: Lectures and writings. Middletown, Conn: Wesleyan University Press. (166)
Does profundity equate to art? What about the other way around?
Into this, structure and all, anything goes. The structure was not the point. But it was practical: you could actually see that everything was happening without anything’s being done. Before such emptiness, you just wait to see what you will see. Is Rauschenberg’s mind empty, the way the white canvases are? Does that mean whatever enters it has room? (In, of course, the gap between art and life.) And since his eyes are connected to his mind, he can see what he looks at because his head is clear, uncluttered? That must be the case, for only in a mind (twentieth) that had room for it could Dante (thirteenth-fourteenth) have come in and gone out. What next? The one with the box changed by the people who look at it.
Cage, J. (1961). Silence: Lectures and writings. Middletown, Conn: Wesleyan University Press. (107)
If there are no questions, there are no answers. If there are questions, then, of course, there are answers, but the final answer makes the questions seem absurd, whereas the questions, up until then, seem more intelligent than the answers.
Cage, J. (1961). Silence: Lectures and writings. Middletown, Conn: Wesleyan University Press. (118)
From (one of) Google’s (many) Definition(s) of Chance:
verb /CHans/
- Do something by accident or without design
From Google’s Definition of Indeterminate:
adjective /ˌindiˈtərmənit/
- Not certain, known, or established
While reading John Cage’s Silence, one of his essays on Indeterminacy (so aptly titled) struck me as clarifying the difference between chance composition and indeterminate compositions. What interests me, is that for Cage, chance composition is by nature determinate. In speaking of his composition Music of Changes, he says:
That the Music of Changes was composed by means of chance operations identifies the composer with no matter what eventuality. But that its notation is in all respects determinate does not permit the performer any such identification: his work is specifically laid out before him. He is therefore not able to perform from his own center but must identify himself insofar as possible with the center of the work as written. The Music of Changes is an object more inhuman than human, since chance operation brought it into being. The fact that these things that constitute it, though only sounds, have come together to control a human being, the performer, gives the work the alarming aspect of a Frankenstein monster. This situation is of course characteristic of Western music, the masterpieces of which are its most frightening examples, which when concerned with humane communication only move over from Frankenstein monster to Dictator. (36, Cage)
What I think Cage means here is that even though the process that the composer used to create the work (in this case Music of Changes) is up to the chance of a die roll, the end result of the piece is still ultimately determined, and nothing at the heart of the piece changes from performance to performance. Indeterminacy on the other hand allows for the same piece to vary wildly from performance to performance:
The 4 Systems by Earle Brown is an example. This piece may be performed by one or several players. There is no core, either for the solo circumstance or for that of ensemble. The quality of indeterminacy is for this reason not removed from the performance even where a number of players are involved, since no fixed relation of the parts exists. The notation is a drawing of rectangles of various lengths and widths in ink on a single cardboard having four equal divisions (which are the systems). The vertical position of the rectangles refers to relative time. The width of the rectangles may be interpreted either as an interval where the drawing is read as two-dimensional, or as amplitude where the drawing is read as giving the illusion of a third dimension. Any of the interpretations of this material may be superimposed in any number and order and, with the addition or not of silences between them, may be used to produce a continuity of any time-length. In order to multiply the possible interpretations the composer gives a further permission-to read the cardboard in any of four positions: right side up, upside down, sideways, up and down. (37, Cage)
 These are very different definitions of two compositional ideas that are often closely related and much of the time thought of as one in the same. I have a question though, is 4 Systems really indeterminate and not just a version of Cage’s “Masterpiece Dictator” with a little bit more leeway? Since the performance is mandated to be based off of Brown’s graphical score, whether it is up down, left or right, isn’t there some sort of limitation on the indeterminacy of the performance? Is it not, as Cage acknowledges about Music of Changes,
No two performances…will be identical, (each act is virgin, even the repeated one to refer to René Char’s thought), two performances will resemble one another closely? (36 Cage)
Is the difference between indeterminacy and all other styles of composition just a subjective consideration of how closely two different performances of the same piece sound alike?
From today’s NYTIMES magazine:
“Craigslistlieder,” as he called it, became a kind of classical-yet-poppy, ironic-yet-musical model. A generation of artists suddenly found the boundaries between genres much more permeable than they used to be — even if classical audiences seem more impressed by Kahane’s indie “cred” than the pop world has been by his classical achievements.
With little instrumental interludes inserted among the confessional songs, Kahane’s self-titled first album, released in 2008, sometimes tried too hard to blend all his interests: it’s classical, and pop, and theatrical, all in one, and it’s beautiful but exhausting.
These days, if he wants to make a comment about crossing genres, he tends to makes that the explicit subject of the piece, as in “Crane Palimpsest.” “Where Are the Arms,” his second album, is more purely pop than his first, with a shimmering production that recalls the work of Kahane’s friend and collaborator Sufjan Stevens.
Although I would like to avoid putting these composers in a box (because that’s exactly what they wouldn’t like!), surely there’s enough of a ‘thing’ going on here to consider it a discreet movement, different from the post-minimalists they are descended from? The reference to ‘Third Stream’ comes from this post.
The present methods of writing music, principally those which employ harmony and its reference to particular steps in the field of sound, will be inadequate for the composer, who will be faced with the entire field of sound.
Cage, J. (1961). Silence: Lectures and writings, p. 4. Middletown, Conn: Wesleyan University Press.
Before this happens, centers of experimental music must be established. In these centers, the new materials, oscillators, turntables, generators, means for amplifying small sounds, film phonographs, etc., available for use. Composers at work using twentieth-century means for making music. Performances of results. Organization of sound for extra-musical purposes (theatre, dance, radio, film).
Cage, J. (1961). Silence: Lectures and writings, p. 6. Middletown, Conn: Wesleyan University Press.
IRCAM (Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique) is a European institute for science about music and sound and avant garde electro-acoustical art music. It is situated next to, and is organizationally linked with, the Centre Pompidou in Paris. The extension of the building was designed by Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers.
~Wikipedia
The UC Berkeley Center for New Music and Audio Technologies (CNMAT) was conceived and established by composer and Professor Emeritus Richard Felciano in the late 1980s — the operating budget officially commenced on July 1, 1989. CNMAT houses a dynamic group of educational, performance and research programs focused on the creative interaction between music and technology. CNMAT’s research program is highly interdisciplinary, linking all of UC Berkeley’s disciplines dedicated to the study or creative use of sound (such as music, architecture, mathematics, statistics, mechanical engineering, computer science, electrical engineering, psychology, physics, space sciences, the Center for New Media, and the Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies). CNMAT’s educational program integrates a Music and Technology component into the Department of Music’s graduate program in music composition – it also supports the undergraduate curriculum in music/technology for music majors and non-music majors.
~From http://cnmat.berkeley.edu/about
So, John, particular steps in the field of sound have clearly become inadequate these days.
On Sunday I went and heard a percussion recital. On it I heard perhaps my favorite piece for solo thunder-sheet ever. (That’s not saying much, it’s the only one I’ve heard). This piece and another that I recently heard called To The Earth by Frederick Rzewski really opened my eyes as to the possibilities of a performer speaking to add to the drama of the work, as well as all the different timbral/compositional possibilities one has on a single thunder-sheet, or in To The Earth’s case, pitched flower pots. The piece I am speaking of (for thunder-sheet) is A Robe of Orange Flame by Christoper Deane. It hasn’t been recorded professionally yet it seems, so it is a real treat to see it live, and its impact is probably much greater that way as well.
The work essentially tells the history of Thich Quang Duc’s self immolation, first as a remembrance of the imagery from the composer’s personal point of view, then as a relation of the a New York Times reporter’s submission for copy and then finally as a child’s fable. If you have a chance to see either of these pieces I highly recommend you take it up, they are really cool.
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