On Sat, 23 Aug 1997, wesley@interaccess.com wrote:
quoted 8 lines On Wed, 20 Aug 1997, Tim Gill wrote:
> On Wed, 20 Aug 1997, Tim Gill wrote:
> > And when have you ever hit
> > random keys on the piano and come out with a masterpiece. You have to have
> > talent to compose valid music.
> Well, the name John Cage does spring to mind...there are probably many
> examples of masterpieces created by hitting essentially random keys on the
> piano (I simply am not familiar enough with modern classical music to name
> them).
Without starting a dissertation about Cage's compositional techniques, let
me at least try to clear up a common misunderstanding. Cage was not
concerned with randomness, but rather indeterminacy -- a fine but
important distinction. Cage used techniques such as using the I Ching to
arrange short phrases (Music of Changes), or allowing varying degrees of
freedom to the players so the outcome is unpredictable within certain
parameters (Fifty-Eight, the "time pieces"). One of the keys is to
formulate the question so that any answer gives an acceptable result. But
that is not random; it's an attempt to remove personal taste from one
stage of the process, in order to open new possibilities.
There's a link from my homepage that compiles some of my rants about this
general area of discussion.
A well-stocked library may have some books by Cage. I'd suggest _Silence_
if you can find it.
--Mark
__ <
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"We invented machines in order to reduce our work. Now that we have
them, we think we should go on working." (John Cage)