Bitter satire from an old sound mixer. You should probably just skip it.

"4:33" (minutes of silence) is a "musical piece" that only needs description - watching Cage sit in front of a piano and do nothing for the duration is completely superfluous.
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The piece is often dismissed as a stunt, but it's not. It is indeed meant to be performed, and when in a proper concert context it is performed, it is actually a great experience. Very hard to achieve now, with the piece's notoriety.
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4:33 is also a commentary on music itself according to Cages definition of music - that music is the organization of sound.
From my own experience, from many years in the classical music field, I'll tell you this: Cage has sneakily made better and more flexible musicians out of many a classical pianist! While fully "composed" (and thus approachable by the typical classical pianist), the preparation instructions for the prepared piano pieces are written so as to make the whole result nondeterministic. The pianists don't realize this until they've committed themselves to performing the pieces... so they're stuck having to give up on their typical goal of perfect reproduction and decide for themselves how things should be done. It may sound strange, but I've seen this crack many a pianist out of a shell that influenced the rest of their performing careers. Clearly, the overtly "chance"y pieces go after this... but even the earlier pieces have this effect.
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Cages "Chance" music is akin to Jazz, the musician adapting to the immediacy of the musical moment by the use of his/her technique and musical instincts.
 
unclebob6958 said:
Cages "Chance" music is akin to Jazz, the musician adapting to the immediacy of the musical moment by the use of his/her technique and musical instincts.
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To a great extent, yes... and completely, for many of his works. But the essence of chance music is to have a bit more complete randomness than is found in Jazz, a bit more "complete lack of control" for the musicians. Jazz musicians sure aim to shape the music and lay claim to it... while Cage wants musicians to get to the kind of realization that he describes here:

“When I first placed objects between piano strings, it was with the desire to possess sounds (to be able to repeat them). But, as the music left my home and went from piano to piano and from pianist to pianist, it became clear that not only are two pianists essentially different from one another, but two pianos are not the same either. Instead of the possibility of repetition, we are faced in life with the unique qualities and characteristics of each occasion. The prepared piano, impressions I had from the work of friends, study of Zen Buddhism, ramblings in fields and forests looking for mushrooms, all led me to the enjoyment of things as they come, as they happen, rather than as they are possessed or kept or forced to be.”

Another example is his compositions for radios, where he gives complex instructions for the operation of the controls of a radio, but the result varies depending on all the things being broadcast at the moment of performance. Compositions partially determined by imperfections in the writing paper, or i-ching tosses.

And, 4:33... if you go to a "Performance of 4:33" it'll likelky be as uninteresting as Ted imagines. It works better when it's placed in the middle of a "normal" concert, and not something known to the audience. It's a bit more than just listening to the sounds. It is, in a sense, the essence of what makes a live performance different from listening at home to a recording. It is a SHARED experience... which goes through, perhaps, impatience, perhaps anxiety in thinking that the pianist has frozen on stage, a slow realization perhaps that the piece begins with a lot of silence, perhaps ultimately amoment of realization when it's over, that that's what it was. But it's a great shared experience when it works. It depends on the whole concert context, the fact that many musicians walk out, sit down, and wait (sometimes a long time) for the right moment to begin, etc.

And, "throwing utensils into a piano"? C'mon, the prepared piano pieces are carefully composed, often quite beautiful, and sonically interesting. Remember, Cage became famous as a percussionist and percussion composer, primarily for dance. When he was asked to compose a piece for a dance that would take place in a space with no room for his typical percussion orchestra, and had just a piano, he wasn;t able to make it work with his pianistic 12-tone approach (he was studying with Schoenberg - we won't go THERE!). So he thought back to Cowell's (his old teacher's) sound experiments with the piano, and found a way to make the piano work as an African percussion ensemble (and, later, as a Gamelan, etc). This was in NO WAY random tossing of things in the piano - he had a sonic goal and found a way to achieve it. As you know, this was in the 30s, long before sample libraries! A very serious and well-executed endeavor. Don't knock it!
 
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I don't know why, but this discussion also reminds me of Satie, who tried REALLY HARD to invent muzak, or "furniture music" as he called it, around the turn of the century (the last one...). He tried to distribute the musicians around the space so noone would have a "focal point" to watch them.. He ran around shouting "don't stand and watch the musicians" but still that's what everyone ended up doing. The concept of music that you didn't stop to pay full attention to wasn't there yet. Look how far we've come!
 
ullanta said:
And, "throwing utensils into a piano"? C'mon, the prepared piano pieces are carefully composed, often quite beautiful, and sonically interesting.
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Just a little "poetic license" for humor's sake. I know it wasn't a fair summary of Cage's work or intentions.

I recorded a pop single many years ago that used a prepared piano - the producer had inserted all kinds of objects that resonated or stifled resonances. It was quite enjoyable, but it was merely a "feature" within a more conventional dance track. If Cage deserves acknowledgement for that idea, so be it.

The non-playing thing (4:33) reminds me of a Mothers Of Invention show I went to at the Garrick Theatre in Greenwich Village back in the day (The Mothers were Zappa's original band, for those who might have missed out on Frank's early career). It was scheduled to start at 8 PM, and my brother and I dutifully filed in and took our seats to hear this presumably brilliant band we knew little about. What ensued was literally about two hours of Zappa and co. farting around with most everything but music. A vacuum cleaner was requested from "Barry", the manager, musicians sat with girlfriends in their laps smooching obliviously, others basically napped or snacked on stage - whatever. But not a note was played.

So, bro and I, felling pretty righteously ripped off, went to the box office to demand our money back. The lady quite calmly said "that's what they do" to our complaint that they were doing...nothing. I forget whether she assured us that something would eventually happen or not, but in either case we were out our ticket money, so we decided to trudge back in and make the best of it.

It wasn't long after that that someone picked up an instrument (the sax player I think), and then everyone else, as though operating on some kind of bird flock-like radar, sort of drifted toward theirs. A few moments later they launched into their first number - and absolutely blew the top of my head off. Mindblowingly brilliant melodic, chordal and rhythmic creations, as only Zappa at his best could deliver, followed one after the other for a couple of hours or so. It was absolutely breathtaking. Unbelievable. I'll never forget it as long as I live.

And to think I would have left before all of that if I could have...
 
Ah, the good old days! It's great to have seen that! Now, the question... if you had gone to another of their shows... do you think you would have some different appreciation for the "opening"?
 
ullanta said:
Ah, the good old days! It's great to have seen that! Now, the question... if you had gone to another of their shows... do you think you would have some different appreciation for the "opening"?
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'Fraid not. If I could have known in advance when they'd actually start playing I'd show up a bit less than that much later. The non-playing part makes for a story I've enjoyed telling many times, but it was, and would be again, pretty much a waste of time otherwise.

You can go ahead and regard me as a conventional thinker if you like re: Cage and all...but at least I could thoroughly appreciate the wild ass-genius stuff Zappa & Co. were doing : )
 
Ted Spencer said:
You can go ahead and regard me as a conventional thinker if you like re: Cage and all...but at least I could thoroughly appreciate the wild ass-genius stuff Zappa & Co. were doing : )
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Not at all! There are certainly plenty of things others appreciate in ways I can't fathom, and there are certainly things I know I appreciate that noone else I've met has. It's interesting to explore those differences. I was perhaps going into Cage so much 'cause I dismissed him for many years but later developed an appreciation.

And as for stories... well, I remember that when I was in my shockingly lousy high school music class (which I passed by virtue of buying lots of M&Ms to send the Glee Club on tour), at some point Cage showed up as a guest speaker. Noone had mentioned this in advance; noone explained to us who he was, so we all sat there uninterested in the mumbly old guy. I wish I could re-visit that wasted opportunity...
 
One big discovery I made in many many years of theatre was that no mater how bad and horrible you think a show is, and I have worked on some real stinkers, there is always someone it is a life changing experience for. And the reverse also holds. I have worked on shows that were jaw droppingly great and seen audience members who just hatted it. Now of course those were my opinions on good VS bad but working on them you also factor in some measurable quality standards (was it just slapped together or were people really putting thought into it, was the director clueless, does the lead know what play they are doing? etc), so it is an "informed" opinion. There are films and shows that for me had a big impact and that people I respect hate... So I try to stay away from the "X is garbage" arguments and try (anyway) to remember to preface with "I thought...". Thee are folks, like Cage, who I'm not much into but I also appreciate that they have had an influence on some folks that I liked a lot. That's why I'm (a little) wishy washy on the excrement guy and his ken. While I think his work is, well exactly what it IS, it might end up pushing someone in a direction that I really like. I pretty much come down on "if you can pull it off go for it", but don't expect me to pay for it. As I said I do a fair amount of "new music" which also is not really my thing. But I get surprised and intrigued by at least on piece in every concert so far, and I figure that's pretty good. When I was at BRT, we figured that out of a season of five main stage shows a successful season had one or more stand out shows (usually only one), one that stunk, and the rest were OK or better. The reason you wanted one that didn't work was that it was an indicator of not being too safe.
 
Noiz2 said:
One big discovery I made in many many years of theatre was that no mater how bad and horrible you think a show is, and I have worked on some real stinkers, there is always someone it is a life changing experience for. And the reverse also holds.
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I've found it amusing to browse rottentomatoes.com's review collections for this exact phenomenon. With extremely rare "100%" and "0%" exceptions (in the former case, almost exclusively classics like "Casablanca" or "The Godfather"), you can look up any horrendous movie you've ever seen (or avoided), like "Gigli" for example, and find someone who recommends it, or the best (any massive box office and/or critical success within the last 20 years) and find lots of negatives. Even from the purportedly reputable "cream of the crop" reviewers.

I usually like to read reviews after I've seen a movie (I hate even the slightest spoilers), and sometimes after seeing one that I think wasn't worth the postage Netflix didn't charge me for, I check reviews, and sure enough - a bunch of professional reviewers thought it was just spiffy...

Try it sometime when...you know...you've got a day off...or something...
 
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