Speaking of Modern Artists...

Christie's is selling a few Jasper Johns that belonged to Merce Cunningham & John Cage on November 11th. The sale will benefit Merce's trust, and you can peruse the Johns here.

(Stubbs' book could just have easily been titled Why People Get Jasper Johns But Don't Get John Cage, no?)

Long Player

We've mentioned the Long Now Foundation before, but newcomers should definitely check out their website and blog...



Lasting 1000 years, Jem Finer’s Longplayer has been playing without interruption, since the first moments of the year 2000, at listening posts around the world. Originally commissioned by Artangel, for almost 10 years it has been performed by computer. Now, for the first time, a tiny fragment of its millennial expanse receives its live debut.

John Cage & Lejaren Hiller, "HPSCHD"

-- LINER NOTES --

SIDE ONE (21:00)
JOHN CAGE & LEJAREN HILLER
HPSCHD (1967-1969)
for harpsichords & computer-generated sound tapes
(publ. Henrnar Press Inc.)

ANTOINETTE VISCHER
Neupert Bach-model
harpsichord
(Solo 11)

NEELY BRUCE
Hubbard double harpsichord
with 17% Eltro time compression
(Solo VI)

DAVID TUDOR
Baldwin solid-body
electronic harpsichord
(Solo I)

Messrs. Cage and Hiller gratefully acknowledge the special assistance of Laetitia Snow, who wtote some of the
original computer programming for HPSCHD; James Cuomo, who helped prepare the original sound tapes with
ILLIAC II; Jaap Spek, who supervised the technical processing of the tape collage; and George Ritscher, who
engineered the final recording.

This recording of HPSCHD was made possible through use of facilities of the Experimental Music Studio and the
Department of Coniputer Science of the University of Illinois, Urbana.

The computer-output sheet included in this album is one of 10,000 different numbered solutions of the program
KNOBS. It enables the listener who follows its instructions to become a performer of this recording of HPSCHD.
Preparation of this material was made possible through the Computing Center of the State University of New York
at Buffalo.
--------------
The esthetic is what we think in the presence of the object. The artist's means are not esthetic but his thinking on them is; his esthetic thought prevails over the means to make a work of art. The rules of fugue or sonata form prophesy no esthetic consequence, except by the thought and doing of the artist. The sound object HPSCHD-"harpsichord" reduced to the computer's 6-letter-word limit becomes HPSCHD-may be the most elaborately defined sound composite so far achieved by deliberate formal composition. All "chance" factors occur within limits closely or widely permitted by the makers. Each part includes ideas from both composers; together they shaped it. Their thought, the object, and our thinking responses, in whatever relationship we hear it, decide our reaction to this work as a work of art.

HPSCHD consists of 51 electronic' sound tapes and 7 solo compositions for harpsichord. Writing in the avantgarde music magazine Source, Cage explains that the piece can exist as "a performance of one of seven live harpsichords and one to fifty-one tapes." The present record is a composition including 3 "live" solos across a composite of the 51 tapes. The source work, Introduction to the Composition of Waltzes by Means of Dice, is attributed to Mozart (K. Anh. C 30.01). For each measure of a 32-measure "empty" form (four 8-measure sections) the composer provides 11 alternative "composed" measures, the choice made by throw of dice. Measure 8 is always the same. With each section repeated the final form is 64 measures (AABBAABB), lasting one minute. This Dice Game repeated 20 times is Solo 11. Using now a computer-derived numerical system borrowed from the digital principle of I-ching (an ancient Chinese oracular or wisdom book), assemble another 64 measures of the same pattern, until another 20 successive assemblages fill 20 minutes. Solos Ill-VI each start with one realization of the Dice Game, progressively replacing the original choice of measures by: Solo 111, passages from Mozart piano sonatas, treble and bass together as written; Solo IV, the same, trebre and bass dissociated; Solos V & VI, associated and dissociated bass and treble measures from keyboard works by Beethoven, Chopin, Schumann, Gottschalk, Busoni, Schoenberg, Cage, and Hiller. Solo I is computer-written in 12-tone equal temperament on the same formulae which are used for the 51 sound tapes. Solo VII is anything of Mozart's chosen by the soloist, played as he wishes.

The 51 sound tapes contain music in equal-tempered scales of, successively, 5 to 56 tones in the octave, each tone deviating over a field of 129 (the half-interval up or down divided by 64 or the equal-tempered tone). Each tape is composed according to a series of programs: e.g., from simple repetitive tones and silences across a field to non-repetitive tones and complexly varied spaces. The patterns are overlaid and continually change, the more redundant being more clearly differentiated, the effect rather like individual trees merging into a forest. Other computer-formalized programs, for note sequence, time (in units), successive events, melodic "goals" (without cadence) and types (diatonic, chromatic, chordal arpeggiation), volume, and dynamics, are similarly intermixed. For the listener to this record a third program, KNOBS, enables him to alter the composite by increasing, decreasing, or eliminating some parts of the whole. On the record, Solo I1 (Dice Game) is in the left channel only, Solo VI in the right channel only, Solo 1 in both channels. "It's the first instance that I know of," Hiller comments, "where the home listener's hi-fi set is integral to the composition."

Each solo and each tape lasts slightly over 20 minutes, the length of this recorded performance. In "live" performance any part can commence at any time, and the length is determined by previous agreement. HPSCHD and the Second Quartet of Ben Johnston embody two extremes of esthetic experience. The multiple routines and subroutines of HPSCHD, although resulting from personal choices by the two collaborators, are In effect as impersonal as statistics or the Golden Section. The decisions concerning the intonational and melodic relationships of the Quartet are as personal as a fine handwriting-in many cultures as highly esteemed as any work of art. Neither work is "classic" or "romantic." Each is as free of the conventional indices for analysis as of the customary signals for emotion-the esthetic equivalent of an experiment in pure research.

Except the harpsichord solos, the sound medium of each work is composed in an intonation (system or scale of pitches) differing from the 12-note equal temperament of the piano. The macrotonal scales (5 to 11 pitches in the octave) and the microtonal scales (13 to 56 pitches in the octave) of HPSCHD are microtonally varied systems of equal division of the octave, without close relationship to the tones and intervals of the overtone series. They are disparate points of sound lacking acoustical coordination and rich overtone sonority. -- Peter Yates

The Listening Habits of Superheroes:

NAME: Ozymandias (Adrian Veidt)
BORN: 1939
POWERS: Super intelligence and discipline, exceptional hand-to-hand combat skills.
MEMBER: Crimebusters
APPEARS: Watchmen

From "After the Masquerade: Superstyle and the art of humanoid watching" from Nova Express, July 12, 1975

NOVA: Changing the subject entirely, do you listen to much music? I wondered what your tastes might be, as a superhero...

VEIDT: I like electronic music. That's a very superhero-ey thing to like, I suppose, isn't it? I like avant-garde music in general. Cage, Stockhausen, Penderecki, Andrew Lang, Pierre Henry. Terry Riley is very good. Oh, and I've heard some interesting new music from Jamaica...a sort of hybrid between electronic music and reggae. It's a fascinating study in the new musical forms generated when a largely pre-technological culture is given access to modern recording techniques wihtout the technological preconceptions that we've allowed to accumulate, limiting our vision. It's called dub music.

4'33" on Mario Paint

via Idolator

Tonight's Programme

Improvisation II, Joseph F. Di Ponio
Almglocken Melodien, Thomas Kozumplik
Lecture on Indeterminacy, John Cage
Songs of a Bad Seed; mvt. 1 - innocense, in a sense, Josh Schmidt
Entrance and Formula, Karlheinz Stockhausen
Capricorn, Leo and Aries from ‘Tierkreis’, Karlheinz Stockhausen
Lecture on Indeterminacy, John Cage
Songs of a Bad Seed; mvt. 2 - escalatings of agression, Josh Schmidt
Walls of Waves, Lorne Watson
Lecture on Indeterminacy, John Cage
Songs of a Bad Seed; mvt. 6 - torch song of a latch-key kid, Josh Schmidt
Variations #2, John Cage
Chickchi, LOOP 2.4.3

Music From Almost Yesterday
Barrow Street Theatre
January 15, 2008, 8:30 PM
27 Barrow Street @ 7th Ave South
New York, New York 10014
info@barrowstreettheatre.com

Joe Drew (trumpet), Edward Ludvigson (guitar), Steve Gilewski (bass), Thomas Kozumplik (percussion), Josh Schmidt (reader), Tim Splain (keys), Lorne Watson (percussion)

NOTE: 'Entrance and Formula' contains Michael's formula from LICHT in its entirety.

John Cage/David Tudor, "Indeterminacy"

I II III IV

John Cage, "Fontana Mix & Aria"

Notes From TIME Records 58003:

FONTANA MIX and ARIA by John Cage are two separate pieces, although capable of being performed simultaneously as has been done and recorded here. FONTANA MIX (1958) consists of several tapes which can be played simultaneously over different loudspeakers and, regarding its composition, it consists of several transparencies which may be placed upon each other in any way and can be read as indications for the production of such tapes. The production of the tapes follows partly the definition of electronic music, partly that of musique concrete, although one does not get further by this differentiation than by differentiating pianos, radios or whistles in Cage's piano music: nowhere is dualism Cage's aim. FONTANA MIX was the first comprehensive transposition of strictly experimental composition procedures-i.e. procedures of which the result is unforeseeable in the moment of their application- from instrumental or vocal music to tape music. Therefore the tapes do not claim to be final fixations of the musical oeuvre, but exist as potential versions of this oeuvre. With ARIA (1958) which can be sung, too, as one of the orchestral parts of Cage's Piano Concert, commences his newer vocal music which in respect to its vocal technique is partly anticipated in ARIA, whereas the compositional procedure remained that of the orchestral material of the Concert.

FONTANA MIX, incidentally, has been composed thanks to the autonomized procedure of one of the 84 notations used in the piano solo part of the Concert. The simultaneity of both pieces is established in the Piano Concert in which both theoretically are contained, in which they even practically could occur.

JOHN CAGE, born in Los Angeles in 1912 studied with Richard Buhlig, Adolph Weiss, Henry Cowell and Arnold Schoenberg. He has been a member of the faculty of the Cornish School in Seattle and of the School of Design in Chicago. He has written works for percussion instruments (AMORES and DOUBLE MUSIC written in conjunction with Lou Harrison have been released on Time Records Contemporary Sound Series 8000), compositions for the modern dance, prepared piano, magnetic tape, compositions by chance operations, indeterminacy of performance. His work brought him, in 1949, both a Guggenheim Fellowship and an award from the National Academy of Arts and Letters. In 1951, Mr. Cage organized a group to make music directly on magnetic tapes, producing in that way works by Christian Wolff, Morton Feldman, Earle Brown and himself. He has written for the Ballet Society, for the Donaueschinger Musiktage and for Merce Cunningham and Dance Company, of which he is musical director. He also composed the prize-winning score for Herbert Matter's film WORKS OF CALDER. His publisher is Peters Edition.

CATHY BERBERIAN was born in the United States of Armenian parents and began her artistic preparations in the theatre and ethnic dancing, and later in concerts, radio and television performances. Miss Berberian arrived in Europe in 1949 on a Fulbright scholarship, which enabled her to complete her vocal studies with Giorgina Del Vigo in Milan. Since 1953 she has appeared on European radio and in concerts in Europe, the United States and Canada. She is the wife of the composer Luciano Berio.

John Cage, "Variations I"

Liner Notes From Wergo WER 60033:

John Cage: VARIATIONS I, FOR ANY KIND AND NUMBER OF INSTRUMENTS

Die "Variations I, for any kind and number of instruments" aus dem Jahre 1958 gehören zu den Kompositionen von John Cage, die dem Interpreten als Vorlage zu eigenen Realisationen dienen sollen. Sie sind auf sechs durchsichtigen Folien notiert, eine davon enthält dicke und dünne Punkte, einzelne Töne oder Akkorde darstellend, auf den fünf anderen sind Gerade, die sich kreuz und quer schneiden: sie definieren die Eigenschaften dieser Töne und Akkorde, ihre Höhenlage, ihre Lautstärke, ihre Dauer, den Zeitpunkt ihres Auftritts, ihre gegenseitigen Beziehungen. Eine der durchsichtigen Folien wird auf das Blatt mit den Punkten geworfen, und wie sie fällt, so sind die Punkte definiert. Jede Realisation dieser Musik fällt anders aus. Gerd Zacher hat mehrere Realisationen der "Variations" gespielt. Für diese Aufnahme wählte er eine aus dem Jahre 1967.

Sie ist für eine mechanische Orgel im vollen Werk mit sämtlichen Koppeln konzipiert. Die Lautstärke wird dabei durch verschiedenen Druck auf die Tasten erzeugt. Im pianissimo wird die Taste nur den Bruchteil eines Millimeters niedergedrückt, so daß eben der erste Hauch in der Ansprache einer Pfeife zu hören ist. Alle anderen Stufen der Lautstärke werden durch balancierendes Spiel auf den Tasten gewonnen. Das wirkt sich wiederum auf die Tonhöhen aus und verändert sie in gewissem Umfang gleitend oder überblasend. Nur das fortissimo entspricht dem traditionellen Orgelansdilag. Manchmal hört man auch nur das gleichmäßige Pochen eines Tremulanten, der unabhängig von der laufenden Musik die Zeiteinteilung skandiert.

Verglichen mit der herkömmlichen Art, auf der Orgel zu spielen, birgt diese von Zacher entwickelte Technik des Balancierens auf den Tasten folgerichtig eingeplante Unsicherheitsfaktoren. Zunächst einmal sind Augenblicke, in denen eine Pfeife überbläst, oder ihr Luftstrom beim allmählichen Schließen des Ventils versagt, unvorhersehbar. Aber unvorhersehbar ist auch, wie der Organist muskulär und nervlich reagiert auf das soeben Gehörte, in dem ständigen Bestreben, die Vorlage zu verwirklichen und ihren Spielraum zu erfassen. Für den Hörer selbst bedeuten diese wechselseitig bedingten Aktionen ein zur Anteilnahme reizendes Spannungsmoment; er kann die Reaktion des Instruments nicht mehr von der des Spielers unterscheiden.

John Cage, "Variations III"

Liner Notes From Wergo WER 60057:

The New Music Ensemble was founded by Howard Hersh (pictured at left) at the Music Conservatory in San Francisco in 1969 with the support of a scholarship from the Ford Foundation. Its primary aim is to bridge the gap between contemporary music and the listener by vital and communicative performances. The Ensemble had some outstanding successes in the USA and in Europe during the first year of its existence. A three-week tour of Sweden and Norway is planned for 1971 plus a series of concerts in the USA, and film making, gospel music, theatre performances, and performances of "avant-garde" music of other epochs.

John Cage: Variations III with Solos. John Cage, born in Los Angeles, California, in 1912, studied under various teachers, including Arnold Schoenberg. In 1943 he moved to New York City. He was already writing works for "prepared piano" in 1938. Cage has probably had a greater influence on the music of later generations of composers than any other in the USA or in Europe. Variations III for voices and percussion with Solos is the third of the Variations, the first of which was written in 1958. The composition leaves plenty of scope for the interpreters as the material placed at their disposal by the composer can be put together as they wish. The "score" consists of six transparent sheets, one of which has dots of various sizes on it while the other five each have five lines on them. They are five sound parameters; the dots represent sound incidents whose character is determined in conjunction with the lined sheets.

John Cage, "Music for Carillon No. 1"

TONIGHT, 8.30PM (EST)

OBJECT COLLECTION
and special guests present


John Cage's Song Books

Tonight (Tuesday May 1st)


Show starts at 8:30 pm SHARP!

The performance lasts exactly one hour.


tickets are $10

Medicine Show Theatre
549 West 52nd, 3rd Floor
NYC


with Kara Feely, Jessica Feldman, Gisburg, Beth Griffith, Travis Just,
Christian Kesten, Dafna Naphtali, Craig Shepard, Harris Wulfson


here is a little archival video of Cage on a game show in 1960 to whet
your appetite (courtesy of Travis Just & WFMU)

John Cage, 26'1.1499" for a String Player

Notes From Nonesuch H-71237:

Bertram Turetzky is one of today's unique concert artists: he has directed his musical career toward expanding the repertoire for and the resources of his instrument, the contrabass. His concern with twentieth-century American music for the contrabass has in ten years more than doubled its existing chamber literature. His work over the same period in the expansion of timbral resources has been reflected not only in many of these new compositions (over a hundred have been written especially for him) but also in several published articles (Source, The Composer, Sound Post magazines). His appearances as virtuoso concert performer feature works from the new repertoire, as do his three previous solo recordings. Born in Norwich, Connecticut, in 1933, Mr. Turetzky did academic work at the New York University graduate school and at Hartt College of Music. He cites bassist David Walter, oboist Josef Marx, and lutenist Joseph Iadone as those men who most contributed to his musical development; he is presently a member of the music faculty of the University of California at San Diego.

The recent spate of recordings of the music of John Cage seems to have largely ignored his instrumental compositions. One of the major contemporary string works, 26'1.1499" for a String Player, written in 1955, is one of these; it is to be hoped that this premiere recording of the work will bring it the attention it deserves from string players. Cage's notes on the work (from the admirable catalogue of his works published by C. F. Peters) are important:

26'1.1499" for a String Player is graphed like 59'1/2" for a String Player... but in actual time, the amount of space equaling a second being given at the top of the pages. The compositional means were complex involving both chance operations and observations of the imperfections in the paper upon which the piece was written.... The rhythmic structure is 3, 7, 2, 5, 11. This piece may be segmented at structural points indicated by dotted lines and the segments superimposed in any way to make duets, trios, quartets, etc. The graphing procedure is described in the composer's notes to 59 1/2" for a String Player:

"Tone productions on the four strings are separately graphed, individual spaces being provided for each string, the range of each of which is determined by the player. Noises on the box, vibrato, and bowing pressure are also graphed. Only indications for direction and place of bowing and changes from hair to wood employ conventional symbols. The piece may be played on any four- stringed instrument."

Cage's notation, therefore, is developed in a manner analogous to the tablature used for stringed instruments such as the lute in the Renaissance, with a separate horizontal line for each string and symbolic instructions as to what to do presented along these lines. Similarly, the tempo-marking, with the pulse indicated by the equally-spaced marks along the score, can be considered graphically analogous to the tactus used by Renaissance performers against which, and into which, the music was placed. Mr. Turetzky's "tactus" for recording the piece was a "click track" recorded from a metronome to assure fidelity to the temporal development of the notation. His performance is from a brilliant realization made by the young Los Angeles composer Harold Budd, which, following one of Cage's suggestions for the piece, superimposes different portions of the score to form a multi-tracked version.

John Cage, 27'10.554" for a Percussionist (1956)

Side 1 | Side 2

Notes From Finnadar SR 9017:

DONALD KNAACK, Percussionist. Recorded, remixed and mastered at Atlantic Recording Studios, New York, N.Y. Recording & remix engineer: Bobby Warner. Mastering engineer: George Piros. PRODUCED BY ILHAN MIMAROGLU. (r) (c) 1977 Finnadar Records Printed in U.S.A. Donald Knaack has performed with the Louisville Orchestra, Manhattan Percussion Ensemble and the Center of the Creative and Performing Arts, State University of New York at Buffalo. His performances include concerts in the U.S. and Europe, premieres of percussion solos by Charles Camilleri, Luis DePablo and Yannis Xenakis. Mr. Knaack is a recipient of a 1976 CAPS Award.

27'10.554" for a Percussionist (1956), by John Cage.

The title of the work is derived from its duration: 27'10.554" The performer utilizes four categories of percussion instruments: metals, woods, skins and an "all others" category (which may be electronic devices, mechanical arrangements, radios, whistles, etc.). The timbres and numbers of instruments in each category are to be determined by the performer.

The overall structure presents a constant flow between the sounds of the instruments and the sounds of the silences in the music. Silence is defined by Cage:

"..for in this new music nothing takes place but sounds: those that are notated and those that are not. Those that are not notated appear in the written music as silences, opening the doors of the music to the sounds that happen to be in the environment.... There is no such thing as an empty space or an empty time. There is always something to see, something to hear..."

Within this hypnotic flow the sounds become points in space which aurally reflect their origin. The composition means were complex involving both chance operations and observation of imperfections in the paper upon which the piece was written. The rhythmic structure is 3,7,2,5,11.

For my realization I have chosen to use percussive timbres in the form of new instruments, found objects and alterations of standard percussion instruments. The "all others" category was realized as a tape recording. The tape consists of a performance of the "all others" part on a Moog Percussion Trigger which triggered a percussive envelope of low-pass filtered white noise into a Moog Synthesizer. The tape recording is played simultaneously with the performance of the percussion instruments.

Notes by DONALD KNAACK

Donald Knaack wishes to acknowledge: Harald Bode, John Cage, Walter Gajewski, Robert Moog.

Welcome to ANABlog, the MP3 blog of the Analog Arts Ensemble!

In the future, we'll talk more about what ANALOG Arts Ensemble is and where it gets off having an audio blog, but the first thing a novitiate should know about us is that we are anti-preamble. So, ignore what you've just read, and we'll get right to it with a gem from Fossil, an obscure band from the 90's, which managed to write a gorgeous song about Josephine Baker.

One of Analog's sister ensembles, Loop 2.4.3 showcases, of all things, their vocal talents with their performance of John Cage's "Story", from his utilitarian classic, Living Room Music. This recording is from an in-studio performance Loop did on Ray Terlaga's show on the great free-form station WPKN.

And we would be remiss if we didn't slip some Goonery into our inaugural post. We'll get some full shows up in the future, but for now, enjoy this Welsh-type Broadcast.

Today's heroes: