source file: mills2.txt Date: Sat, 10 Aug 1996 09:02:46 -0700 Subject: From McLaren From: John Chalmers From: mclaren Subject: The adoration of the Cage-i...part 2 -- John Chalmers has suggested that John Cage is a worthwhile composer because, after all, he is "the major 20th American experimental composer." This raises some fascinating questions: Exactly what is an experimental composer? Which hypothesis does the experimental composer conduct an experiment to test? What is the experimental control? What kind of statistical methods does the experimental composer use to analyze hi/r results--linear regression, chi square, least squares, ANOVA? What and where is the mathematical model upon which the experimental composer's hypothesis is based? Which laws of nature does the experimental composer seek to investigate...? ...Or is, perhaps, the term "experimental" used merely to indicate a certain glamorous intention to be "scientific," in the same way that advertisements for astrological services include the phrase "scientifically calculated using the latest astrological computer program"...? As it happens, Iannis Xenakis is the composer most often described in the press and by audiences as "the major 20th century experimental composer." In fact Xenakis succeeded where Caged failed: using a computer, Xenakis could toss millions of coins in the time it took Cage to toss one, and with a computer program Xenakis could direct the ensemble statistics of his coin-tosses, whereas Cage could never do anything more than generate a random noise stream. Because using a computer would have required talent and intelligence, Cage chose instead to spout a steady stream of double-talk. On the other hand, one could also argue that Morton Feldman succeeded where Cage failed. In fact so *many* other composers produced interesting music using techniques with which Cage failed to produce anything listenable that it's clear the difference is *not* due to...uh, well...chance. Rather, the difference can only be explained by Cage's utter lack of musical talent. However, John Chalmers wasn't the only subscriber who rushed out of the shower to Cage's aid. A number of other forum subscribers have staunchly "defended" Cage by pointing out that "he changed how we listened to music," that he wrote amusing prose, that he was the first to compose with the I Ching, etc., etc. So, in the same spirit, here's a list of reasons why we should listen to John Cage's music: * John Cage was a great modern composer because he was tall. * John Cage was a great modern composer because he liked mushrooms. * John Cage was a great modern composer because he wore flannel shirts. * John Cage was a great modern composer because Ecuador is a land-locked country. * John Cage was a great modern composer because the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle ended the war of Austrian succession in 1748. Take your pick! Of course no one has yet suggested that John Cage was a worthwhile composer on the basis that he could actually compose interesting music. No, we all know that would be *pushing it too far*. After all, even for the most gullible forum subscriber...credulity has its limits. -- In a related nugget of wisdom, Paul Rapoport lamented the "Cage-bashing" that has gone on. This is presumably the new description for telling self-evident truths--we now call it "bashing," along the lines, no doubt, of the omnipresent Political Correctness. Thus one can't call someone fat nowadays: s/he is "weight-challenged." Saying someone is fat is vile and outrageous; it's "weight-bashing." In the same vein, let's have no more of this condemnation of Hitler for slaughtering 6 million Jews. That's "Hitler-bashing." Similarly, John Wayne Gacy was no doubt "compassion- challenged," and we should all refrain from "Gacy-bashing." For that matter, we should write to the National Insitute of Health and urge that the battle against cancer be ended posthaste. That, after all, is "cancer-bashing." Perhaps John Cage is a great modern composer because (as P.T. Barnum put it) there's a sucker born every minute... -- In Tuning Digest 784 Greg Taylor offered an enooooooormous post in response to my modest proposal re: the "accepted canon" of classical music. Without offering any facts or data to back up his sentiments, the thrust of Taylor's several thousand words of verbiage seems to be: "I don't like mclaren." This can be shortened immensely and vast amounts of internet bandwidth saved if Taylor simply posts "IDLM" in response to my posts. In fact, the process can be streamlined even further by writing a 'bot which spits out the string "IDLM" to the tuning forum at random intervals. This would enlighten us at least as much as Taylor's actual posts, and save enormous amounts of time and bandwidth. --mclaren Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Sun, 11 Aug 1996 01:05 +0200 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA06943; Sun, 11 Aug 1996 01:05:14 +0200 Received: from eartha.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA06941 Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) for id QAA01593; Sat, 10 Aug 1996 16:05:12 -0700 Date: Sat, 10 Aug 1996 16:05:12 -0700 Message-Id: <960810190150_381694222@emout18.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: madole@ella.mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu