Stop and prepare : Cage

[Quijote]

Several posters here have commented that they are not qualified to discuss this topic and the blame for this lies with movements such as the electroacoustic avant garde in creating a clique dedicated to alienating the public which it so disdains. As Hellewell says in his article a cacophony is a cacaophony and needs no further explanation - the deceit lies in making you believe you are inadequate if you don't get it.

It is quite a feat to get so much wrong in so little space. I have already pointed out your vague use of terminology, and Heckler Halliwell's sophistry. Try explaining the ridiculous WYHIWYG 'maxim' to those who cannot 'understand' the relevance of classical music.
I will deal with your Schaeffer bagetelle later tonight.

[Peter]

It is quite a feat to get so much wrong in so little space. I have already pointed out your vague use of terminology, and Heckler Halliwell's sophistry. Try explaining the ridiculous WYHIWYG 'maxim' to those who cannot 'understand' the relevance of classical music.
I will deal with your Schaeffer bagetelle later tonight.

Missing the point seems to be a habit of yours. Several posters have said they do not feel qualified to discuss this topic - perhaps you can explain why they should feel that way?

[Quijote]

Good points Peter. I have been listening to Cage's music on You Tube and have only found pieces, basically consisting of different notes here and there. So what I was wondering is did Cage ever write anything more complex? If so could someone point me to a piece of music that isn't just notes and things of that nature.

Perhaps, the problem with Cage, is that he seems prude and tried to make something out of things that have been mastered throughout 1000s of years, and therefore he seems, to some of society, to be some kind of genius?

No, poor points, Preston. But I applaud you for your intellectual curiosity, a major sign of intelligence. I don't know the You Tube piece you are referring to, but never mind. Perhaps you could try Cage's Constructions in Metal I and II as an introduction to percussion-based music that does not rely on purely 'pitched' material.

I must say, though, that I was taken aback at your "a piece of music that isn't just notes and things of that nature". You must ask Helliwell (or perhaps Peter), to help you there.

I don't know if Cage was a prude. Can this aspect be in the music, do you feel? I do think though that he was indeed some sort of genius, yes.

[Quijote]

Missing the point seems to be a habit of yours. Several posters have said they do not feel qualified to discuss this topic - perhaps you can explain why they should feel that way?

You raised several points. I addressed the Halliwell one (cacophony/WYHIWYG) in particular. I will deal with the other points later. Patience.

[Peter]

I do think though that he was indeed some sort of genius, yes.

A much abused word these days.

[Peter]

You raised several points. I addressed the Halliwell one (cacophony/WYHIWYG) in particular. I will deal with the other points later. Patience.

Hellewell not Halliwell. You didn't and still haven't dealt with the main point I was making that several posters feel unqualified to comment on these issues. I at least attempted that even if you disagree with the conclusions.

[Quijote]

A much abused word these days.

Is that an oxymoron? One doe not abuse words, one misuses them.

[Quijote]

Hellewell not Halliwell. You didn't and still haven't dealt with the main point I was making that several posters feel unqualified to comment on these issues. I at least attempted that even if you disagree with the conclusions.

The main point (of several), but not the point, which wasn't missed (I rarely do). The spelling of 'Hellewell' : noted. Far more apt.

[Peter]

The main point (of several), but not the point, which wasn't missed (I rarely do). The spelling of 'Hellewell' : noted. Far more apt.

You must be a politician.

[Quijote]

You must be a politician.

I'm not in the mood. See after.

[Quijote]

No of course Rolf Harris doesn't associate himself with the avant garde - he wasn't the one denigrating the past, it was Emin and I still would like to know if you agree with her or not? As to Picasso, I admire much, but by no means all - I think Guernica a masterpiece.

Now regarding composers let's begin with the fact that the avant garde (as you well know) is a reaction against the past (often this is marked with a strong social or political slant) and that several prominent members of this movement have expressed their disdain for the past - amongst them Cage, and Stockhausen who advocated a complete rejection of the entire canon of classical music. For Boulez even Schoenberg was dead.

Now let us come on to your area of electroacoustic music which I have looked into and have discovered some interesting facts which I don't know if you are aware of or not. The origins of this movement are in the Musique concrète (which you refer to) pioneered by Pierre Schaeffer. What surprised me most was discovering that he agrees with me on every point we have been debating. I know how you dislike it when I produce quotes and articles in my defence, but I think they are valid because I do not have your advantage of a thorough association with the subject which is I admit a failing.

Like many of the pioneers of electronic music, Pierre Schaeffer was not a musician but involved in the science of musical acoustics with himself as the director. He explained how he reacted against Schoenberg and the Vienna school which he describes as coming from a discipline which wasn't music but an algebraic equation. Now allow me to present his views in his own words "Musique Concrete in its work of assembling sound, produces sound-works, sound-structures, but not music. We have to not call music things which are simply sound-structures. There are many people working with sound. It's often boring, but not
necessarily ugly. It contains dynamic and kinaesthetic impressions. But it's not music. Unfortunately it took me forty years to conclude that nothing is possible outside DoReMi...I think of myself as an explorer struggling to find a way through in the far north, but I wasn't finding a way through..There is no way through. The way through is behind us. You have to admit that some periods are simply vile, disgusting, and that this is one of them. The only hope is that our civilization will collapse at a certain point, as always happens in history. Then, out of barbarity, a renaissance."

I would only disagree on the last point in that I hope a collapse will not be necessary for the renaissance I also talked about in a previous post. Now I hope you will not fly off into hysterical reaction and accusations at these comments but will at least recognise that prominent people associated with this 'music' (acoustic science) have renounced it as a failed experiment.

I am finding the whole process educational and I have been listening to pieces by Dennis Smalley for example and others prominent in the current movement so I am grateful for you at least stimulating my interest if not changing my views.

You are a master at quoting from populist sources such as Rolf Harris (surely a master on a level with [add relevant name]) and Hellewell (the great inventor of ‘multi-dimensional music’ and a thoroughly household name). To put you out of your evident misery, I do not agree with Emin’s denigration of past masters, but still maintain I like her work ‘Bed’. I also admire Picasso, and ‘Guernica’. As to Stockhausen and Cage, my ‘admiration’ wavers for works later in their careers where I feel they pander somewhat to commercial pressures, or go off on so-called ‘spiritual’ or ‘transcendental’ trajectories, even ‘over conceptualisations’. I do hope though, that your yardstick of artistic merit is not limited to the pronouncements of Rolf Harris or Hellewell.

Your comments make me think you have been reading Wikipedia. If so, I must deplore your fatuous level of reference, and to have singularly misunderstood an essentially ideological – as opposed to aesthetic – position. What Cage and Stockhausen have reacted against (and Boulez, and Reich and many others) is the ‘cult’ of Beethoven and other canonic masters, which is not to say they denigrate the actual music. You quote Boulez’s famous ‘Schoenberg is dead’ without mention (or knowledge) of its context : this is yet another example of your demagogy, and it is worth nothing but scorn.

You are partly right to pinpoint the ‘origins’ of electroacoustic music with Pierre Schaeffer, though fail to mention the work of Edgar Varèse that considerably predates Schaeffer’s work. For the record, I do not dislike it when you quote sources in your ‘defence’, but urge you to seek more reputable ones. The rather simple (though at the time, necessary) approaches to musique concrète were but a starting point in keeping with the technology. Electroacoustic music (today, 2009) has little to do with ‘concrète’, a fact your researches fail to mention. You mentioned Denis Smalley (my teacher), but have not commented so far. When may we expect your insights?

Now for your distortions : you say “Pierre Schaeffer was not a musician but involved in the science of musical acoustics with himself as the director.” For your information, Schaeffer played the piano and ‘cello. He was not the non-musician you seek to portray. You say : “he was involved in the science of acoustics…”. True, but music (even in Hellewell’s impoverished view) is based on mathematical ratios à la Pythagoras (or ‘algebraic’ as you say).

But this is by the way. There is a something fundamental in what Schaeffer says that you have not mentioned (maybe intentionally, or through ignorance) : sure, recording concrète sounds and assembling them in collage fashion cannot, I suppose, in most peoples’ view, constitute ‘music’, though that in itself is debatable. What you, Peter, have failed to comprehend, is Schaeffer’s call for ‘acousmatic’ listening, i.e. the attempt to divorce the sound from its source. He was, in fact, calling for a way to ‘compose’ these sounds (ugly sometimes) into something more.

You have also misquoted (rather, seriously misconstrued) Schaeffer, which is unforgivable: when he said “it took me forty years to conclude that nothing is possible outside Do Re Mi” he was referring to the fact that it is impossible to ‘notate’ sounds outside of our classical notational system (i.e. ‘pitches’), not that pitched music is the non plus ultra of our art. He was referring to timbre, which is something never notated in Western classical art music, beyond specifying the instrument(s).

And now to the ‘renaissance’: this is your field, Peter. I still cannot see what you imagine, as it has always been with us (though under different terms). Allow me to quote a more credible source (with my comments in square brackets):

“The development of Western music in the 20th century is dominated by an historic bifurcation in musical language: tonality with its metrically organised harmonic and melodic relationships has continued to be the vernacular [what, melody has never disappeared?], absorbed unconsciously from birth, while the other fork, in its most recent guise, is represented by spectro-morphology. Spectro-morphology is an approach to sound materials [the raw material of music] and musical structures which concentrates on the spectrum of available pitches [and sounds] and their shaping in time. In embracing the total framework of pitch and time it implies that the vernacular language is confined to a small area of the musical universe. Developments such as atonality, total serialism, the expansion of percussion instruments, and the advent of electroacoustic media, all contribute to the recognition of the inherent musicality in all sounds. […] As such it [spectro-morphology / electroacoustic music] is an heir to Western musical tradition which at the same time changes musical criteria and demands new perception”.

Contrary to Schaeffer’s ridiculous comment, there is no need for a collapse. Why should there be?

To reject your position once again Peter, taking but one pioneer as gospel for your so-called ‘failed experiment’ exposes your utter misunderstanding of this music. The only maxim I can offer you is to allow the ‘primacy of the ear’ to guide you. In other words, try listening again.

[Preston]

Philip, the arts are one of the most touching things to me. I do not hold artists so close, as I hold Beethoven and Van Gogh. These are the two artists who I have the deepest respect for. I know that there is much great art, even what many call far better art then the two I just mentioned, but it is their lives and beliefs that touch me, other then their art. I couldn't imagine feeling the way I feel about Van Gogh and Beethoven about Emin or Cage.

It hurts me badly to think that I am not as studied in it as I would like to be, at all. I would need to study music and art theory, which I want and need to do, much more, to give you a more valid comment.

Personally, I do not know if Cage is prude, perhaps I never will, although I said that because his intellectual mannerisms towards music, seem to be, kind of elitist- although, I have not studied about him enough so I should not have said "prude" to begin with.

After reading some about the avant garde- concerning Cage, Emin, etc., it does seem kind of hack and fake. For instance, Emin, she is a waster, I have no respect for this woman or as I would put it this thing, perhaps she should have stayed in the bed! It would nice for her to rid us of her poisonous character!

Do not get me wrong though, I do want to look into it more, just so that I have a better understanding of it.

[Peter]

You are a master at quoting from populist sources such as Rolf Harris (surely a master on a level with [add relevant name]) and Hellewell (the great inventor of ‘multi-dimensional music’ and a thoroughly household name). To put you out of your evident misery, I do not agree with Emin’s denigration of past masters, but still maintain I like her work ‘Bed’. I also admire Picasso, and ‘Guernica’. As to Stockhausen and Cage, my ‘admiration’ wavers for works later in their careers where I feel they pander somewhat to commercial pressures, or go off on so-called ‘spiritual’ or ‘transcendental’ trajectories, even ‘over conceptualisations’. I do hope though, that your yardstick of artistic merit is not limited to the pronouncements of Rolf Harris or Hellewell.

Your comments make me think you have been reading Wikipedia. If so, I must deplore your fatuous level of reference, and to have singularly misunderstood an essentially ideological – as opposed to aesthetic – position. What Cage and Stockhausen have reacted against (and Boulez, and Reich and many others) is the ‘cult’ of Beethoven and other canonic masters, which is not to say they denigrate the actual music. You quote Boulez’s famous ‘Schoenberg is dead’ without mention (or knowledge) of its context : this is yet another example of your demagogy, and it is worth nothing but scorn.

You are partly right to pinpoint the ‘origins’ of electroacoustic music with Pierre Schaeffer, though fail to mention the work of Edgar Varèse that considerably predates Schaeffer’s work. For the record, I do not dislike it when you quote sources in your ‘defence’, but urge you to seek more reputable ones. The rather simple (though at the time, necessary) approaches to musique concrète were but a starting point in keeping with the technology. Electroacoustic music (today, 2009) has little to do with ‘concrète’, a fact your researches fail to mention. You mentioned Denis Smalley (my teacher), but have not commented so far. When may we expect your insights?

Now for your distortions : you say “Pierre Schaeffer was not a musician but involved in the science of musical acoustics with himself as the director.” For your information, Schaeffer played the piano and ‘cello. He was not the non-musician you seek to portray. You say : “he was involved in the science of acoustics…”. True, but music (even in Hellewell’s impoverished view) is based on mathematical ratios à la Pythagoras (or ‘algebraic’ as you say).

But this is by the way. There is a something fundamental in what Schaeffer says that you have not mentioned (maybe intentionally, or through ignorance) : sure, recording concrète sounds and assembling them in collage fashion cannot, I suppose, in most peoples’ view, constitute ‘music’, though that in itself is debatable. What you, Peter, have failed to comprehend, is Schaeffer’s call for ‘acousmatic’ listening, i.e. the attempt to divorce the sound from its source. He was, in fact, calling for a way to ‘compose’ these sounds (ugly sometimes) into something more.

You have also misquoted (rather, seriously misconstrued) Schaeffer, which is unforgivable: when he said “it took me forty years to conclude that nothing is possible outside Do Re Mi” he was referring to the fact that it is impossible to ‘notate’ sounds outside of our classical notational system (i.e. ‘pitches’), not that pitched music is the non plus ultra of our art. He was referring to timbre, which is something never notated in Western classical art music, beyond specifying the instrument(s).

And now to the ‘renaissance’: this is your field, Peter. I still cannot see what you imagine, as it has always been with us (though under different terms). Allow me to quote a more credible source (with my comments in square brackets):

“The development of Western music in the 20th century is dominated by an historic bifurcation in musical language: tonality with its metrically organised harmonic and melodic relationships has continued to be the vernacular [what, melody has never disappeared?], absorbed unconsciously from birth, while the other fork, in its most recent guise, is represented by spectro-morphology. Spectro-morphology is an approach to sound materials [the raw material of music] and musical structures which concentrates on the spectrum of available pitches [and sounds] and their shaping in time. In embracing the total framework of pitch and time it implies that the vernacular language is confined to a small area of the musical universe. Developments such as atonality, total serialism, the expansion of percussion instruments, and the advent of electroacoustic media, all contribute to the recognition of the inherent musicality in all sounds. […] As such it [spectro-morphology / electroacoustic music] is an heir to Western musical tradition which at the same time changes musical criteria and demands new perception”.

Contrary to Schaeffer’s ridiculous comment, there is no need for a collapse. Why should there be?

To reject your position once again Peter, taking but one pioneer as gospel for your so-called ‘failed experiment’ exposes your utter misunderstanding of this music. The only maxim I can offer you is to allow the ‘primacy of the ear’ to guide you. In other words, try listening again.

Pierre Schaeffer ends his interview (which I have in full and you won't find on wikipedia) wisely with the words "I think we've said enough."

[atserriotserri]

I did once perform this piece for 'cello (without the composer's express written consent), and it went down very well. This was during a lecture on contemporary and electroacoustic music to an audience mainly composed of art students. I made a few euros.

Sir, I bow upon you

[PDG]

Is that an oxymoron? One doe not abuse words, one misuses them.

True, but the example is not an oxymoron. 'Bittersweet' would be such an example...