Colin wrote:
> The point is that Cage does "do" a lot to construct his pieces but once "done"
> he simply doesn't fuss over them and 'lets things be as they are' (He is not
> in the business of "sterilisation of music" al la YES or some other such
> band who spend years perfecting (ruining) their music (sic)).
> Still, "doing" even for Cage still logically proceeds "letting", since
> without it there would be nothing to "let".
No, I don't think this gets at what Cage is doing. You are locating the
"letting" in the wrong place. Here is the model I think you are using:
Cage constructs a piece of music, like, say, Mahler would construct a piece
of music; it's a little different from Mahler, because in the process Cage
uses some chance operations so as to get some unexpected musical effects;
but then it's not so different, because after all chance creeps into
_every_ creative process, irrespective of whether the composer consciously
explores this or not. But once the piece is finished, Cage just lets it out
into the world and anybody can play it however they want and it's all cool.
whereas in Mahler the performers would be expected to play the piece
according to age-old canonical standards of competence, proficiency and
perfection.
But this is not at all a good account of Cage's process. In Cage's process,
there are two forms of letting: a letting with respect to sounds and silence,
and a letting with respect to future perfomers. The performer-directed
letting means, for Cage, that there is no "once the piece is finished"
in the compositional sense, because what the performers do has to be
part of the compositional process. This is not just a courteous way of
describing the age-old process of interpretation and execution that
performers everywhere have always engaged in. It means that the piece
is from the very beginning conceived in such a way that the performer's'
freedom and responsibility, at each juncture, must play in determining
and creating what will be heard a role that is completely different
than it is in the Western canon. In some Cage pieces, any actual
performance is preceded by a very long period during which the performers
arrive at decisions about the pitches, textures, durations that will
constitute the piece; all they are given is a strategy.
You might say: this is simply like improvisation. But it isn't, and here
we come to the second (or first) "letting": letting the sounds and
silences be what they are. Cage basically thought that in improvisation,
this kind of letting doesn't happen; the performers do what _they_ want
to do; they exert a domination over sound and silence, they use them
instrumentally -- just as much as sounds are used instrumentally in the
traditional compositional process. So the idea is not to let the
performers do what they feel like, but to involve them in a discipline
in which all participants -- composer, sound, silence, performer -- are
party to a mutual process of "letting". The use of chance is not to
find new "scales" or "modes", but precisely to break completely with the
habits of organizing sounds into "scales", modal or not. It is to break
with any habit of organizing sound, period. "Syntax is the army".
> But interpreted literally, 'letting things be what they are' implies not
> chance but doing nothing. Cage on the other hand "makes" music, he does not
> simply contemplate music (which of course would still be a form of doing).
> Whatever, Cage in his "doing" blatantly disrupts 'things as they are' and
> makes a difference in the world, even if he can't control everything (nor
> would he want to).
Yes, and we already talked about this. I think that Cage would probably
regard "doing" as being a part of "the way we are". So the question, for
him, is how to relearn "doing" -- which of course includes thinking -- so
it it not "the army".
-m
> The point is that Cage does "do" a lot to construct his pieces but once "done"
> he simply doesn't fuss over them and 'lets things be as they are' (He is not
> in the business of "sterilisation of music" al la YES or some other such
> band who spend years perfecting (ruining) their music (sic)).
> Still, "doing" even for Cage still logically proceeds "letting", since
> without it there would be nothing to "let".
No, I don't think this gets at what Cage is doing. You are locating the
"letting" in the wrong place. Here is the model I think you are using:
Cage constructs a piece of music, like, say, Mahler would construct a piece
of music; it's a little different from Mahler, because in the process Cage
uses some chance operations so as to get some unexpected musical effects;
but then it's not so different, because after all chance creeps into
_every_ creative process, irrespective of whether the composer consciously
explores this or not. But once the piece is finished, Cage just lets it out
into the world and anybody can play it however they want and it's all cool.
whereas in Mahler the performers would be expected to play the piece
according to age-old canonical standards of competence, proficiency and
perfection.
But this is not at all a good account of Cage's process. In Cage's process,
there are two forms of letting: a letting with respect to sounds and silence,
and a letting with respect to future perfomers. The performer-directed
letting means, for Cage, that there is no "once the piece is finished"
in the compositional sense, because what the performers do has to be
part of the compositional process. This is not just a courteous way of
describing the age-old process of interpretation and execution that
performers everywhere have always engaged in. It means that the piece
is from the very beginning conceived in such a way that the performer's'
freedom and responsibility, at each juncture, must play in determining
and creating what will be heard a role that is completely different
than it is in the Western canon. In some Cage pieces, any actual
performance is preceded by a very long period during which the performers
arrive at decisions about the pitches, textures, durations that will
constitute the piece; all they are given is a strategy.
You might say: this is simply like improvisation. But it isn't, and here
we come to the second (or first) "letting": letting the sounds and
silences be what they are. Cage basically thought that in improvisation,
this kind of letting doesn't happen; the performers do what _they_ want
to do; they exert a domination over sound and silence, they use them
instrumentally -- just as much as sounds are used instrumentally in the
traditional compositional process. So the idea is not to let the
performers do what they feel like, but to involve them in a discipline
in which all participants -- composer, sound, silence, performer -- are
party to a mutual process of "letting". The use of chance is not to
find new "scales" or "modes", but precisely to break completely with the
habits of organizing sounds into "scales", modal or not. It is to break
with any habit of organizing sound, period. "Syntax is the army".
> But interpreted literally, 'letting things be what they are' implies not
> chance but doing nothing. Cage on the other hand "makes" music, he does not
> simply contemplate music (which of course would still be a form of doing).
> Whatever, Cage in his "doing" blatantly disrupts 'things as they are' and
> makes a difference in the world, even if he can't control everything (nor
> would he want to).
Yes, and we already talked about this. I think that Cage would probably
regard "doing" as being a part of "the way we are". So the question, for
him, is how to relearn "doing" -- which of course includes thinking -- so
it it not "the army".
-m