In early September, I did a series of shows on WREK about John Cage, in recognition of his 100th birthday. You can find the official series announcement and schedule details here. This blog is where I documented my own notes for the show.
It’s not really intended for the public, but I thought some of you who tuned in might be interested. Please do NOT share this page with others, i.e. via Facebook; if you want to share something, use the WREK link above.
Thanks to everyone for their support, including the guys who lent me their Cage material and the Tuesday performers!
Jump ahead to:
main Sunday Special show, Cage overview
late Sunday night, early Cage material
late Monday night, Cage album “Variations IV” in entirety
Tuesday night Live at WREK performances, including details of exotic instrumentation
late Tuesday night, Cage album “Indeterminancy” in entirety
http://www.johncage.info/index2.html
http://www.ubu.com/sound/cage.html
http://www.discogs.com/John-Cage-John-Cage/master/26116
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cage
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_compositions_by_John_Cage
interview snippet: UBU interview MP3 CD #4, 9:54-17:10, general commentary
interview snippet: UBU interview MP3 CD #1, 0:00-4:57 early history to 1958
main Sunday Special show, Cage overview
Imaginary Landscape No. 4
composed (performed?) April 1951
24 performers at 12 radios
media: UBU mp3, burned to CD? ~5 minutes long?
http://www.johncage.info/workscage/landscape4.html
interview snippet: UBU interview MP3 CD #1, 9:23-10:00, use of I Ching
Music Of Changes
composed (performed?) May-Dec 1951
compositional indeterminancy, but fixed performance
first foray into use of I Ching (“E King”, “Yee Jing”, etc.) divination system
quartet performances involve many musicians but only four are playing at once
media: should have tracks “Book 1” “2” “3” “4”; Haller CD #7 has #3 and #4
Williams Mix, 1952-1953
octophonic, tape splicing
named for …
media: on Haller CD #8, 5 minutes; also on UBU CD 4m25s plus applause (and boos?)
Variations I, 1958
media: Curt Wells CD (see more below)
Indeterminancy, 1959
excerpted during Sunday Special show, played in entirety on Tuesday night, see below
Lecture on Nothing, 1959
text is part of “Silence” collection of 1939-1961 essays
media: UBU mp3 burned to audio CD; Kaegan Sparks and Christian MArclay at Philadelphia ICA (U Penn) in 2007, 67m55s
see UBU notes
Cartridge Music, 1960
objects instead of needle cartridges inserted into phone arms, act as pickup mics
media: Curt Wells CD (see more below)
Atlas Eclipticalis, 1961
use of star charts
media: WREK CD
(I didn’t play any of this, I don’t think)
Klangexperimente, 1963
media: UBU audio CD track 5, 1m 58s
no info at all
Mureau, 1970
spoken word
interview snippet: UBU interview MP3 CD #4, 4:50 – 8:15, explanation
media: UBU interview MP3 CD #3, up to 1h09m mark, excerpt it
media: UBU audio CD track 8, 4m06s excerpt
(I didn’t play any of this)
Mushroom Haiku, from Silence, 1969/1972
media: UBU audio CD track 6, 4m46s
also UBU audio CD track 7, 2m03s, “Disconnected”
4’33”
place on hold for that length of time
late Sunday night, early Cage
Imaginary Landscape (No. 1), 1939
2 variable-speed phono turntables, frequency recordings, muted piano and cymbal
media: UBU misc audio CD, 8m50s
Works for Prepared Piano, 1940s
media: Haller CD #3 and #4
Margaret Leng Tan CD
early (1940-1953) compositions on various types of piano
media: WREK CD
Second Construction, 1940
media: Curt Wells CD (see more below)
Sonatas and Interludes, 1946-1948
prepared piano: screws, bolts, rubber, plastic; 2-3 hours prep; mathematics, proportions, symmetry, nesting
I also played a whole lot of excerpts from some tribute albums that came out after Cage passed in 1992. I’ll write those up here later.
late Monday night, Cage album “Variations IV” in entirety
Variations IV, 1965
scored by shapes on a clear plastic sheet then cut up and distributed around stage; this method mentioned in one of the Brown/Cage Quartet piece intros
performed in Los Angeles, August 1965; CD/LP are excerpts from 6 hour performance
media: WREK CD, 65 minutes total, 2m52s intro
media: Scott Watkins LP, 30 minutes
see Wikipedia
(I played the CD)
Tuesday night Live at WREK live performances!
I’ll provide Wikipedia / johncage.info links here later.
1. Composed Improvisation for Snare Drum (8 min): snare drum solo with timing and form subject to chance; performed by Stuart Gerber
2. A selection from 27’10.554″ (exactly 15’55.282″ long) for a percussionist; instrumentation included standard drum kit, seed rattle, shell wind chime, kalimba (aka thumb piano), dumbek, a piece of granite, a kazoo and three small gongs; performed by Caleb Herron
3. Child of Tree (8 min); composed for instruments made of natural (plant) materials; in this instance, those instruments were pod rattles, wooden water buffalo bell, beans and a wood block; performed by Stuart Gerber
4. Fontana Mix (10 min); synthesizer, iPad, digital recorder, toddler’s toy, 3 tape decks, saxophone, digital samplers, sequencers and mixers; performed by Robby Kee and Robert Cheatham
5. Inlets (10 min, shortened to 5 min by time constraints), gurgling and bubbling of the conch shells, recording of burning pine cone, one conch shell played briefly as horn; performed by Stuart Gerber, Jan Baker, and Caleb Herron
6. The Year Begins to be Ripe (Solo No. 49 from Songbooks) (2 min); voice and table top, using text from the journal of Henry David Thoreau; performed by Stuart Gerber
late Tuesday night, Cage album “Interterminancy” in entirety
Indeterminancy, 1959
both compositional and performance indeterminancy
one story per minutes, sped up or slowed down accordingly to fit
speaker and piano are physically separated, on separate stopwatches
media: WREK CD, 90 minutes; also Haller CD #5 and #6
fantastic liner notes by Richard Kostelanetz (1992) and Cage (1959) including Zen/boring/2-4-8 quote
random selections from Kostelanetz book
In 1988, Richard Kostelanetz published a book of interviews with Cage, entitled “Conversing With Cage”. I have found that Cage is endlessly fascinating, and in fact in leafing through this book recently, it seemed like anywhere I happened to land was interesting. Which gave me an idea …
Throughout the shows series I selected quotes from this book at random, using the random number generator at random.org. This isn’t exactly a divination system like the I Ching, but it’ll do. The copy I used is the second edition, published in 2003 by Routledge press.