source file: mills2.txt Date: Thu, 5 Dec 1996 09:06:51 -0800 Subject: Experimental Music: Varese; Cage and Microtonality From: Daniel Wolf <106232.3266@compuserve.com> In fact for nearly every occasion that Varese publicly rejected the term, I can find another source (particularly in his correspondance with funding sources or presenters) where Varese uses the term without complaint. As to pretentiousness, Varese's use of pseudo-scientific terminology is unmatched (Integrales, Hyperprism, Ionisation, Density...). And the quote that Randy Winchester gives merely shows how Varese transfered the experimentation to the listener without removing it from the musical situation altogether. Surprisingly not out of date - with regard to this topic - is the first chapter of Michael Nyman's 1974 book _Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond_ (Schirmer, due for a second edition next year), which is a 26 page attempt to define the term. Nyman is extremely careful not to identify the term in scientific terms, but in terms of Cage's musical division of labor into composing/performing/listening. Also useful are the notebooks of George Brecht, published in a reproduction of his manuscripts perhaps five years ago in Cologne, which include his notes from Cage's class at the New School for Social Research. Cage's introductory lectures to this course are a real model of how one might still profitably organize a composition seminar, beginning with a discussion of acoustical parameters and their musical (culturally defined) organization. In the context of this forum it is worth pointing out some connections between Cage and the microtonal community. It was Cage, for example, who wrote a letter to Schoenberg on behalf of Ivor Darreg, and who introduced Darreg to the quarter-tone composer (and sometime Partch patroness) Mildred Couper (this is someone deserving of research!); further, Cage, more than once wrote letters or gave references in support of Partch´s work, despite Partch´s public denouncements of Cage. In Cage´s own music, microtonality is not a central factor until his very last works, but (off the top of my head - and ignoring works where noise is the chief factor)) _Atlas Eclipticalis_, much of the _Song Books_, the violin version of _Cheap Imitation_, and the scores derived from Thoreau drawings (eg _Renga_) are explicitly microtonal. HPSCHD - co-composed with Hiller - is a multiple division extravaganza. The last series of pieces, the **Number** pieces, includes several with microtonal notations, indicating up to seven levels of differentiation from 12tet pitches. That Cage did not look at this material _systematically_ (i.e. as 96tet, for example) is another topic altogether. Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Fri, 6 Dec 1996 08:15 +0100 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA19501; Wed, 4 Dec 1996 14:15:35 +0100 Received: from eartha.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA21038 Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) for id FAA24057; Wed, 4 Dec 1996 05:15:32 -0800 Date: Wed, 4 Dec 1996 05:15:32 -0800 Message-Id: <199612041315.PAA26237@info.forthnet.gr> Errors-To: madole@ella.mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu