Page 280 - ESSENTIAL LISTENING TO MUSIC

watch . . . a video of a prepared piano, online.
but come instead in an unpredictable sequence as the result of nonmusical deci- sions such as following astrological charts, tossing coins, throwing dice, or shuffling randomly the pages of music to be played. The musical “happening” that results is the sort of spontaneous group experience that was to flower during the 1960s. For example, in Cage’s work 0’00’ (1962), performed by the composer himself that year, he sliced and prepared vegetables at a table on a stage, put them through a food processor, and then drank the juice, all the while amplifying and broadcasting the sound of these activities to the audience (including your author). Cage’s declara- tion that the ordinary noise made by food processing can be “art” is virtually identi- cal in intent to Andy Warhol’s glorification of the Campbell’s Soup can: Both typify the kind of radical art fashioned during the 1960s in New York City, the epicenter of Postmodernism.
Naturally, music critics called Cage a joker and a charlatan. Most would agree that his “compositions,” in and of themselves, are not of great musi- cal value in traditional terms. Nevertheless, by raising profound questions regarding the relationships between human activity, sound, and music, his compositions eloquently articulate his own musical philosophy. By focus- ing on the chance appearance of ordinary noise, Cage aggressively asks us to reevaluate the basic principles that underlie most Western music: Why must sounds of similar range and color come one after the other? Why must music have form and unity? Why must it have a melody? Why must it have “mean- ing”? Why must it express anything? Why must it develop and climax in some organized way? Why must it be goal-oriented, as is so much of human activity in the West?
4’33’’ (1952)
Cage’s “composition” that causes us to focus on these questions most intently is his 4’33’’ (see Listening Cue). Here one or more performers carrying any sort of instrument come on stage, seat themselves, open the “score,” and play nothing. For each of the three carefully timed movements, there is no notated music, only the indication tacet (it is silent). But as the audience soon realizes, “absolute” silence is virtually impossible to attain, except in outer space. With no organized sound to be heard during the four minutes and thirty-three seconds that fol- low, the listener gradually becomes aware of the background noise in the hall— a creaking floor, a passing car, a dropped paper clip, an electrical hum. Cage asks us to embrace these random everyday noises—to tune our ears in innocent sonic wonder. Are these sounds not of artistic value, too? What is music? What is noise? What is art?
Needless to say, we have not filled your downloads with four minutes and thirty-three seconds of background noise. You can create your own, and John Cage would have liked that. Sit in a “quiet” room for four minutes and thirty-three seconds, and notice what you hear. Perhaps this experiment will make you more aware of how important willful organization is to the art we call music. If nothing else, Cage makes us realize that music, above all, is a form of organized communication from one person to the next and that ran- dom background noise can do nothing to communicate human perceptions and feelings.
watch...arandom performance of Cage’s chance music 0’00”, online.
258 chapter sixteen american modernism and postmodernism
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