source file: mills2.txt Date: Sat, 20 Jul 1996 11:50:13 -0700 Subject: Cage and microtonality From: John Chalmers As for John Cage, whether one likes his music or not, he was the major 20th American experimental composer. I must admit that I've never felt comfortable with the notion that art should resemble nature in its mode of operation, as extreme randomness is not really nature's way. I have also resented his dismissal of microtonality as "just another wing on the academy," but his work always has seemed to sound (and look) much better than one would expect from the verbal description of its structural and philosophical basis. Much of it is very good music irrespective of its composer's aesthetic principles. Furthermore, Cage has in fact composed with microtones in such works as Ryoanji (in 1/4-tones, performed out of doors at the dedication of the sculpture garden of the Houston Museum of Fine Arts and joined by an exhibit of his engravings) and HPSCHD, a computer collaboration with Lejaren Hiller, which used various ET's up to 51 or 53-tet. Johnny Reinhard has programed Cage's "Sonatas and Preludes for Prepared Piano" on his AFMM concert series as a microtonal work and Dean Drummond has performed a transcription of "Haika," with Cage's permission, on the justly-tuned aluminum tube metallophone, the Zoomoozophone. Cage also inspired James Tenney to write an important theoretical essay "John Cage and the Theory of Harmony." (I'm ad-libbing this AM, so I may not have the titles word-perfect.) --John Received: from eartha.mills.edu [144.91.3.20] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Sat, 20 Jul 1996 21:58 +0100 Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) for id MAA25061; Sat, 20 Jul 1996 12:58:00 -0700 Date: Sat, 20 Jul 1996 12:58:00 -0700 Message-Id: Errors-To: madole@ella.mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu