My friend Bill Vickery recently shared with me an article about Cage's 4'33" from the Wall Street Journal. I teach the piece in my classes and here's part of what I teach about this piece.
The piece is deeply artistic in that it is a multi-layered reflection of musical culture and of the composer's thoughts. Cage made no decisions regarding what sounds would be heard during the performance except that the performers wouldn't play or sing anything. This brings up many philosophical questions regarding traditional ideas about composition and performance:
What should the composer control?
What does a performer do?
What is the role of the audience?
How do these ideas shape our expectations and experience of musical events?
In addition to these philosophical questions about the nature of art, there are also religious issues at play. Cage contemplated some sort of silent piece that could have been called "Prayer" years before he wrote 4'33". Also, Cage was involved with Zen Buddhism. Perhaps 4'33" is a secularized invitation to the meditative experience that he encountered in Eastern religion.
Having performed the work on several occasions for my students, I can confirm that the experience is akin to the entrance into meditation. First there is some awkwardness and discomfort at the unusualness of the situtation. Audience members are focused to take in a performance, but the performance involves little action and no traditional musical sound. This awkward stage may include some giggles and restlessness. Soon these give way to a calmer atmosphere, and listeners become aware of everyday sounds that they usually tune out - the ticking of a clock, the bussing of the lights, a car passing. Little by little, it seems that listeners become more personally focused and become aware of their own breathing and so forth. This self-awareness can be very calming, and we rarely achieve that sort of focus and tranquility as a group in our society.
4'33" presents another quandry.
What's the next step for a composer who has written a piece with no notes in it?
Cage continued down his path by writing aleatoric music - music in which chance procedures replace the composer's choice regarding various musical elements. 4'33" is part of that larger movement, and that larger movement also expresses the Buddhist ideal of removal of one's will from the situations one faces in life.
Monday, March 26, 2007
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Chaos Theory
I learned a bit about chaos theory at lunch with my friend Robert Johns a couple of weeks ago. Two ideas immediately related to music in my way of thinking.
1. Chaos theory suggests that seemingly random or chaotic phenomena may be based on some extremely organized and intricate order. This is illustrated by many 20th century musical works, expecially works in the realm of serialism. Such works often sound totally unorganized to listeners on the first hearing, but many of these works are among the most tightly organized in every parameter of music from pitch and rhythm to timbre and register.
2. Chaos theory suggests that tiny bits of change at one point in a process may bring about radical large-scale change at some later point. My mentor, Dr. Vern Falby, often described tracking the tonality of a piece of music as being similar to tracking a bear through the forest. A broken twig here and a twisted branch there are the tiny signs that point the way to the bear. A sharp here or a flat there are the initial signs that the music is moving into a new key.
1. Chaos theory suggests that seemingly random or chaotic phenomena may be based on some extremely organized and intricate order. This is illustrated by many 20th century musical works, expecially works in the realm of serialism. Such works often sound totally unorganized to listeners on the first hearing, but many of these works are among the most tightly organized in every parameter of music from pitch and rhythm to timbre and register.
2. Chaos theory suggests that tiny bits of change at one point in a process may bring about radical large-scale change at some later point. My mentor, Dr. Vern Falby, often described tracking the tonality of a piece of music as being similar to tracking a bear through the forest. A broken twig here and a twisted branch there are the tiny signs that point the way to the bear. A sharp here or a flat there are the initial signs that the music is moving into a new key.
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
Westminster Choir College Performance
March 16 at 7:00 PM the Westminster Choir of Westminster Choir College will present a concert at Huguenot Road Baptist Church, co-sponsored by the Da Capo Institute.
Admission is free and the concert will be a treat that includes a wide array of music from American spirituals to works by contemporary Estonian composers.
For more information about this performance and other Westminster Choir College-related events in Richmond next week, click here.
Admission is free and the concert will be a treat that includes a wide array of music from American spirituals to works by contemporary Estonian composers.
For more information about this performance and other Westminster Choir College-related events in Richmond next week, click here.
Friday, March 02, 2007
Return to Blogging and Schumann's Waldszenen
My mother passed away in July of 2006 after a difficult three months in the hospital. Since that time I haven't really had time or desire to blog. At one point I was pretty sure I'd stop altogether, but I'm back in the mood now.
Two things put me back in the mood. First, my friend Jeff Prillaman designed a new website for the summer music festival with which I work and included the blog address in a prominent location. That got me started thinking that I should not give up on the blog. Second, yesterday I came across the blog of Ben Witherington who is providing what I think is an excellent reponse to the Jesus Tomb book and upcoming film. Dr. Witherington's blog affirmed for me the value of this medium and the quality of work that can take place through it.
Now, on to music.
My pianist friend Samir Vugdalic is working on Schumann's Waldszenen. The set includes movements with titles such as "Friendly Landscape" and "Hunter in Ambush." Thinking of these pieces got me thinking about the changing contexts of classical music. I assume that the people who originally heard and enjoyed these pieces knew a good bit about rural life and hunting from first hand experience. Maybe they were wealthy and hunted for sport, or they were poor and hunted for food. I don't know any of this for sure, but it seems likely that Schumann's first listeners would have at least been more in touch with these aspects of life than the majority of the modern classical audience members who are mostly urbanites.
I'm interested in playing some of these pieces for contemporary rural audiences to see what insights they have into the music and what enjoyment they might have of it.
Another friend, Robert Johns, helped me develop another example of meanings or perceptions of music changing depending upon context. Light shows, electronic sounds, and jarring percussive effects are experienced by many listeners as being completely normal at a rock concert. The same listeners perceive those elements as being unmusical and weird in the context of an avant-garde art music concert. Somehow the avant-garde-ness outweighs the familarity and coolness/neatness of the technological media.
(By the way, these seemingly hypothetical listeners are actually numerous classes of music appreciation students I have taught over the past few years.)
Two things put me back in the mood. First, my friend Jeff Prillaman designed a new website for the summer music festival with which I work and included the blog address in a prominent location. That got me started thinking that I should not give up on the blog. Second, yesterday I came across the blog of Ben Witherington who is providing what I think is an excellent reponse to the Jesus Tomb book and upcoming film. Dr. Witherington's blog affirmed for me the value of this medium and the quality of work that can take place through it.
Now, on to music.
My pianist friend Samir Vugdalic is working on Schumann's Waldszenen. The set includes movements with titles such as "Friendly Landscape" and "Hunter in Ambush." Thinking of these pieces got me thinking about the changing contexts of classical music. I assume that the people who originally heard and enjoyed these pieces knew a good bit about rural life and hunting from first hand experience. Maybe they were wealthy and hunted for sport, or they were poor and hunted for food. I don't know any of this for sure, but it seems likely that Schumann's first listeners would have at least been more in touch with these aspects of life than the majority of the modern classical audience members who are mostly urbanites.
I'm interested in playing some of these pieces for contemporary rural audiences to see what insights they have into the music and what enjoyment they might have of it.
Another friend, Robert Johns, helped me develop another example of meanings or perceptions of music changing depending upon context. Light shows, electronic sounds, and jarring percussive effects are experienced by many listeners as being completely normal at a rock concert. The same listeners perceive those elements as being unmusical and weird in the context of an avant-garde art music concert. Somehow the avant-garde-ness outweighs the familarity and coolness/neatness of the technological media.
(By the way, these seemingly hypothetical listeners are actually numerous classes of music appreciation students I have taught over the past few years.)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)