Funny you bring up Cage because I would have liked to add a comment to my previous
post which was that Cage didn't view interpretations of his graphic scores as
improvisations and from what I know he wasn't fond at all of jazz. And David Tudor
used to make up precise plans as to how he would interpret Cage's scores.
Andrei
Ed Hall wrote:
quoted 31 lines andrei@world.std.com writes:> andrei@world.std.com writes:
> : Ed Hall wrote:
> :
> : > Electronic music eliminates the player, while improvisational music
> : > eliminates the composer.
> :
> : Improvisation is instant composition. As long as one's playing some sort of
> : "instrument" and one's making conscious decisions about what one's playing,
> : one is composing. Composition comes _out of_ improvisation. There really is
> : no such thing as free improvisation. Even the freest of improvisers have
> : "licks". And recordings of : improvised music tend to become more like
> : compositions to the listener if listened to repeatedly.
> :
> : I realize I'm taking your statement a bit out of contest.
>
> Actually, you're not. The point that composer and player are combined
> in improvisation is well-taken. I would extend that to the possibility
> that all three can be combined. Further, if a listener imposes a mental
> grid around ambient sounds that makes them musical to him or her, then
> they are, in fact, music -- just like the mental grid I project upon a
> Bach fugue makes it musical to me though the same sounds might be "noise"
> to a Bantu tribesman.
>
> -Ed
>
> P.S. A somewhat more amusing John Cage quote follows:
>
> I was surprised when I came into Mother's room in the nursing home to see that
> the TV set was on. The program was teenagers dancing to rock-and-roll. I asked
> Mother how she liked the new music. She said, "Oh, I'm not fussy about music."
> Then, brightening up, she went on, "You're not fussy about music either."
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