Friday, October 20, 2023

Silence: Lectures and Writings

 

Book: Silence: Lectures and Writings
Basic Information : Synopsis : Expectations : Thoughts : Evaluation : Book Group : New Words : Book References : Good Quotes : Table of Contents : References

Basic Information:

Author: John Cage

Edition: epub on Libby from the San Francisco Public Library

Publisher: Wesleyan University Press

ISBN: 9780819560285 (ISBN10: 0819560286)

Start Date: October 20, 2023

Read Date: Unfinished

276 pages

Genre:  Essay, Book Group

Language Warning:  None,

Rated Overall: 2  out of 5



Synopsis:

A series of essays by Cage on various topics related to modern experimental music. And then by extension, the philosophy behind his compositions. He talks extensively about silence-how there is no true silence, we just mask other sounds, and his attempts at making a truly random less compositions. He also discusses other people in the 20th century modern music era.



Expectations:

  • Date Became Aware of Book: October 20, 2023
  • Why do I want to read this book: A few months ago my book group read a book on the books which influence Tom Bowie. This was one of them. We will be discussing our books in a couple of months.
  • What do I think I will get out of it? In high school my music teacher exposed us to Cage’s work. Since that time I have been interested in him.

Thoughts:

I did not read all of the book and my notes cover about half of it. When there was items I highlighted, but not wrote about, they are in the chapter where they were taken from in italics.

Each essay usually has an introduction to give context of why Cage was writing this piece. Then at the end, there is some commentary.



Foreword to 50th Anniversary Edition

The text remains the same

Do you see how much easier it is to get people to think for themselves by asking questions than by making pronouncements

Silence has a reputation as the most influential book written by an American composer

two great turning points in Cage’s life: the change in his music in 1951, at age thirty-eight, and the change in his public career—brought about by this book—at age forty-nine.

when the war came along, I decided to use only quiet sounds. There seemed to me to be no truth, no good, in anything big in society. But quiet sounds were like loneliness, or love or

Erdman’s husband, the distinguished expert on world mythology Joseph Campbell

century mystic Meister Eckhart

4′33′′ is only mentioned twice in Silence, never by name, but as “my silent piece


Thousands of lives were changed as a result of the book’s publication


Skimming is inherently discouraged. The technique makes one regard each word independently

composers learned that music that was not understood would be assumed profound

No aspect of Cage’s music, I suspect, offended people more than what was perceived as a deliberate abnegation of the ambitions a composer was assumed to nurture

Experimental Music” article, of having had doubts himself. Cage, though, posits a strict definition: music based on actions “the outcome of which is not foreseen

Cage, instead, emphasizes the listener’s responsibility for the musical experience, the extent to which the way one listens determines what is heard

Huang-Po’s Doctrine of Transmission of Mind

Part of what keeps us all coming back to Silence, I suspect, is the impossibility of answering these questions,

Silence is the traveler’s guide to that world

labyrinths in whack



Foreword

Manifesto

This is a one page representation of Cage’s thinking, written for a program booklet in Greenwich Village. I have done a screenshot of the text so that it will retain the flavor.

 

As you can see, his thinking is not traditional. One part can be summarized by saying, do not expect anything out of what is called music-you are not going to get anything. But I disagree. To a person who believes there is a spiritual component to man, music can have the effect of being transcendental, lifting a person beyond the physical world we live in.



The Future of Music: Credo

Cage is being prophetic in this piece. It was originally given as a talk in 1937 and printed in 1958. He takes us through the evolution of electronic instruments. From replicating sounds made by existing instruments evolving to having their own special sounds. He notes that The special function of electrical instruments will be to provide complete control of the overtone structure of tones (as opposed to noises) and to make these tones available in any frequency, amplitude, and duration.


He emphasizes that music WILL BE EXPLORED. WHEREAS, IN THE PAST, THE POINT OF DISAGREEMENT HAS BEEN BETWEEN DISSONANCE AND CONSONANCE, IT WILL BE, IN THE IMMEDIATE FUTURE, BETWEEN NOISE AND SO-CALLED MUSICAL SOUNDS.


Cage looks at different types of instruments and thinks through what a composer will do with them.



Experimental Music

He talks about labels-such as experimental music, composer, musician, … He objected to some of the labels. That is until he realized that there is ordinarily an essential difference between making a piece of music and hearing one. He notes the difference as being the difference between someone who has walked a path many times and knows it well and some one who is marveling at each flower along the way, being their first time.


Experimental music is defined by Cage as music which he is interested in. Does not sound like a very good definition. Somewhat like interesting books are only those books I am interested in. He does go on to say: For in this new music nothing takes place but sounds. Also he counts silence as sound as well as there is nothing truly silent: There is no such thing as an empty space or an empty time. This is a central fact to him.


He has an infatuation with sound recorded on magnetic tape. He thinks this is a game changer. Not only from the availability of music, but also how music can be put together. Such as the ability to splice tape to create something else. Or being able to mix sounds together to create something new. I think he is right that the ability to easily record changes things. But he saw this as the end of the line, I wonder what he would have thought about digital records and the ability to do things at the stroke of a key?


the position of a particular sound in this space being the result of five determinants: frequency or pitch, amplitude or loudness, overtone structure or timbre, duration, and morphology (how the sound begins, goes on, and dies away. He talks about this relentlessly in this collection of essays. Any sound at any point in this total sound-space can move to become a sound at any other point. But advantage can be taken of these possibilities only if one is willing to change one’s musical habits radically


I use the word “approximation” because a measuring mind can never finally measure nature. Sounds like Heisenberg.


Emotion takes place in the person who has it.


Cage’s music is based upon this: New music: new listening. Not an attempt to understand something that is being said, for, if something were being said, the sounds would be given the shapes of words. Just an attention to the activity of sounds. Maybe I have a little mind, but at some level understanding has to take place. At its extreme, I am thinking this sounds like brainwashing if you take away a person’s ability to sort out what they are hearing and just enter a state of mindlessness. He is heavily influenced by Eastern thought, of Zen. He also was focused on randomness.


If he did not want understanding, why write this book?


It goes without saying that dissonances and noises are welcome in this new music. … music is not concerned with harmoniousness. To me this is the basic philosophical difference between Cage and me. Cage tries to mimic the chaos of our world without resolution. He seems to take a step back and says this is all there is. I see the chaos and think that there was meant to be order and beauty. We have just mucked things up. A Bach or Beethoven tries to make beauty from the chaos of those who play different notes at different rhythms. Cage tries to create as much dissonance as possible. This play, however, is an affirmation of life—not an attempt to bring order out of chaos nor to suggest improvements in creation, but simply a way of waking up to the very life we’re living, which is so excellent once one gets one’s mind and one’s desires out of its way and lets it act of its own accord.



Experimental Music: Doctrine

To Cage, the term experimental may or may not apply to music. It does not apply to a composition a composer has worked on. To the composer, the finished product is not experimental, but the results of his experiments. But it may be experimental if the outcome is not known, such as when you introduce randomness to the composition.


A sound accomplishes nothing without it life would not last out the instant. I do not understand this as a conclusion. Is a deaf person without life?


Then there is a series of questions and answers.


Composing’s one thing, performing’s another, listening’s a third. What can they have to do with one another? This seems like the thing about if a tree in a forest falls without anybody around, did it make a sound? If a composition is made but it is not played, is it composition? If a play performs and nobody is around, is it a performance?


Pitches are not a matter of likes and dislikes. True, taken by themselves it is hard to say if it is a correct pitch. But when put into relationship with another, then a person can have pleasure or pain.


Who said anything about themes? It is not a question of having something to say

what is the purpose of this “experimental” music? ANSWER: No purposes. Sounds


Cage is asked about dynamics. As far as too loud goes: “follow the general outlines of the Christian life.” What does this mean? Seems like a Christian life is repentance, grace, faith, and acting as Christ would. What does this have to do with what Cage is talking about? Or is Cage just trying to be smart and talking nonsense?


Cage is asked about athematic music. He responds with: Who said anything about themes? It is not a question of having something to say. If I understand correctly, Cage is saying music should not have a voice, a reason, should just be. This would resonate with his view of life-without purpose.


QUESTION: what is the purpose of this “experimental” music? ANSWER: No purposes. Sounds. Which raises the question, of why produce sounds?



Composition"" Process

I. Changes

This was one of the many hard to read essays in the book. Cage had a piece called Music of Changes. There was randomness in the piece, but the length of the piece was fixed. Cage originally gave his essay as a lecture. He wanted the lecture to be exactly the same length as the piece. So each line on his essay would be read at a pace which would make it one second. There were also blank lines where Cage did not speak. He would have the composition playing in those intervals where he was not speaking. I do not know what effect this had on his audience, but on me, it made it difficult to read with any sense of continuity.


the mind (as opposed to the heart) (one’s ideas of order as opposed to one’s spontaneous actions); this lecture gives the idea of how wrong the sound Cage makes is. it leads to discord and discontinuity rather than beauty and understanding


To give you an idea of what it is like to read this, here is how it appeared in the ebook:

the for-

mal concern was

to make the prog-

ress from the end

of a section

to its begin-

ning seem inev-

itable


Between Cages way of putting words on a page and his thoughts, it is hard for me to follow what he says.

the deduc-

tion might be made

that there is a

tendency in

my composi-

tion means away

from ideas

of order towards

no ideas

of order.

What little I know of Cage, this seems to be true. He tends towards the unordered. Such as turning on a radio to a random station for a random length of time. It is my understanding that this is how he views our world-disordered. But this is not how I see things. I see that we are in a constant fight to regain order, pushing back from disorder. This is something which separates humans from beasts.


Cage makes a comment that structure in music is no longer useful. I am not sure if he is talking about a particular piece or all music. If it is about a particular piece, if it is his, then he is the best judge of that. But all music? I do not think so. If for no other purpose that there needs to be a beginning and an end.


what happens

to a piece of

music when it

is purposeless-

ly made?

Or anything, if you think about it. If anything, this is an argument for there is to be purpose in life? After all, isn’t music a reflection on life?

¶Though

in the Music

for Piano

I have affirmed

the absence of

the mind as a

ruling agent

from the structure

and method of the

composing

means, its presence

with regard to

material

is made clear on

examining

the sounds themselves.

Cage says that where the mind comes in is that the notes played are more traditional sounds than sounds which would be off frequency.


Some of what Cage talks about was high-tech at the time. Such as splicing in magnetic tape to get the feel for what he wanted. We now have things like Audacity to mix and merge sounds together.

Noises

were crotchets with-

out stems.

A crotchet is a quarter note.

He talks about composing with the radio on as well as when friends drop by. Several

other kinds of

sound have been dis-

tasteful to me:

the works of Bee-

thoven, Ital-

ian bel can-

to, jazz, and the

Vibraphone.

This seems rather narrow minded of him. Is he greater than Beethoven? What did he find revulsive about his work? I can only think it was the order he put into his compositions.

They are

occasions for

experience,

and this exper-

ience is not

only received

by the ears but

by the eyes too

He is right on this. All the senses come into play in all which we do. We cannot appreciate Beethoven without imagining the colors his music evokes.



II. Indeterminacy

This lecture is not about performance but about composition. His music is written in such a way that even the same composition will appear different in performance, and not just subtly the difference in two master pianists performing the same piece. The function of the performer in the case of “Music of Changes” is that of a contractor who, following an architect’s blueprint, constructs a building. … He is therefore not able to perform from his own center but must identify himself insofar as possible with the center of the work as written. “The Music of Changes” is an object more inhuman than human, since chance operations brought it into being. And that seems to be the search in Cage’s music, how to make things as inhuman as possible. It is more mechanics and chance that artistry and beauty.


He goes on to compare the performer to being a camera rather than the photographer. The function of the performer in the case of the Intersection 3 is that of a photographer who on obtaining a camera uses it to take a picture.


Cage does notes that when multiple performers are involved, then chance is reduced as the performers must be synchronized.


He talks about Ground of Meister Echhart. But from what I can tell-I have not read Eckhart- Eckhart was talking about how the soul searches for God, the God, in the desert, the place of the wasteland. Why? Because there is so little which comes between you and God. I do not see any of this desire for God. Later on Cage quotes from Eckhart. It becomes clear that the composer is to be the god of the performer.


There is the possibility when people are crowded together that they will act like sheep rather than nobly. He wants to space out his groups so that each does not follow the other’s lead. The conductor is not there to lead, but to give the performer a sense of time.


How is it, Dr. Suzuki? We spend the evening asking you questions and nothing is decided.” Dr. Suzuki smiled and said, “That’s why I love philosophy: no one wins



III. Communication

Cage starts this paper off by giving credit to his quotes. But then he notes that both the quantity of placement of the quotes are by chance. This gets to the heart of what he says throughout his writings. What he does is meaningless by itself. If something makes sense, then it is by chance.


He then starts off by asking a series of questions. The questions do not seem to be leading anywhere and appear to be chosen randomly. One of those questions is Are we getting anywhere asking questions? Which I think is appropriate.


Another one of the questions is if there are rules, who made them, I ask you? This is one of the better questions, as opposed to the frivolous questions such as I can, but may I? And Is a truck passing by music? In Cage’s canon, it is.


He then goes into a series of quotes. One of the quotes is: WHEN WE SEPARATE MUSIC FROM LIFE WHAT WE GET IS ART. I do not think this is true. It is when music helps us explain life, when it enhances life it is art.


He ends this section with: Is it true there are no questions that are really important? I think how you answer this shows what you believe and how you live. Then more meandering questions. Including this little bit of self-introspection: Why do they call me a composer, then, if all I do is ask questions.


I HAVE NOTHING TO SAY AND I AM SAYING IT.


He says that the listener's experience is a complex thing which is beyond the composer’s control. When you think about an audience, many factors play into that experience. The hall, the location of the person, the general state of the audience, to name a few.


One of Cage’s favorite themes is silence. He notes that WHEN SILENCE IS NOT EVIDENCE, THE WILL OF THE COMPOSER IS. INHERENT SILENCE IS EQUIVALENT TO DENIAL OF THE WILL


He concludes this with a story about visiting Puget Sound. They went to Anacortes Island and saw Deception Pass. While they were there, some tourist came up and said to another, “You come all this way and then when you get here there’s nothing to see.” Sort of like what Jesus said to those when he told his parables, Let them who have ears to hear, let them hear.



Composition



To Describe the Process of Composition Used In Music of Changes and Imaginary Landscape No.4 f 57

He talks about how he generates his unpredictability by tossing 3 coins six times to get 262,144 possible combinations. But that is not what he is aiming for. He has a method where he creates an eight by eight chart to determine how a piece will be played. He has a set of rules about how this will be done. This gives duration, pitch and other things for the piece.


He strives to give a piece without individual taste, memory or traditions. Hence, Value judgments are not in the nature of this work as regards either composition, performance, or listening. Therefore, A “mistake” is beside the point, for once anything happens it authentically is


Cage did not have this, but in today’s environment, the performer is obsolete as the composer can just program this into a computer to give the performance the composer is envisioning. If one was to think hard enough, one could see that a computer would be able to do away with the composer.


As a Christian, this is the exact opposite of the Genesis story. God created man with allo of his individuality. Cage is trying to do away with that and create things which no longer possess anything human about it.



To Describe the Process of Composition Used in Music for Piano 21-52 / 60

Forerunner. of Modem Music

He defines music as edifying, from time to time it sets the soul in operation. This does not seem to be what Cage’s music does. It seems to be more dehumanizing than building up the soul.


When asked why, God being good, there was evil in the world, Sri Ramakrishna said: To thicken the plot. Seems like a very callous answer.


In this essay, Cage goes through and gives a series of sections, breaking apart how music is composed. Such as under Random, he says that Music means nothing as a thing. I think this is an extension of what he is trying to do. Dehumanize music. By inference, he thinks humans do not have eternal meaning, so why should its music? A finished work is exactly that, requires resurrection. I do not understand this statement. Is he saying that once a composition is finished, it is dead? He then goes on with a hierarchy:

  • Better to compose than perform

  • Better to perform than listen

  • Better to listen than to misuse music for distraction, entertainment or culture.

What is the purpose of music? That gets back to his first statement-music means nothing. So how are things better?



History of Experimental Music in the United States

The past does not influence me, I influence it. This is a quote from Dr. WIllem De Kooning. This seems a bit presumptuous. He does not recognize the forces which brought him to his current place. But there is a recognition that you interpret how you see the past. Such as the conversation the United States has about slavery. That has a wide variation depending on how you view slavery in the United States,


Cage reviews various composers. He indicates that it is no longer necessary to study old European influences. Such as what Christian Wolff did when he discovered other geometrical means for freeing his music of intentional continuity.


History is the story of original actions



Erik Satie



Edgard Varese

Who is EDGARD VARÈSE?


He said that music is organized sound. For those who are interested in sounds just as they are, apart from psychology about them, one must look further for Varèse’s present relevance.



Four Statements on the Dance

Cage notes that it was hard for composers to get their new music played. It was evident that musicians interested in new music were rare. I can understand if the performers thought that they were more like robots than artists.



Goal: New Music, New Dance

This was written in 1939. Cage was interested in getting rhythm and percussion more than just something to keep time with. Then he says that Tomorrow, with electronic music in our ears, we will hear freedom. But do we really have freedom? Now all we hear is dissonance and noise which rarely brings us closer to being human.



Grace and Clarity

Personality is a flimsy thing on which to build an art. He does not mean that personality should not enter into art but that it is not the basis for a work. The poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins, with all their departure from tradition, enable the reader to breathe with them.


Clarity is cold, mathematical, inhuman, but basic and earthy. Grace is warm, incalculable, human, opposed to clarity, and like the air. Grace is not here used to mean prettiness; it is used to mean the play with and against the clarity of the rhythmic structure.

In Zen they say: If something is boring after two minutes, try it for four. If still boring, try it for eight, sixteen, thirty-two, and so on. Eventually one discovers that it’s not boring at all but very interesting



=====================

This is where my notes stop. Any additional items below this are interesting things I found in this book. I only read about two-thirds of the book.

=====================



In This Day



2 Pages, 122 Words on Music and Dance



On Robert Rauschenberg, Artist, and His Work 98


Beauty is now underfoot wherever we take the trouble to look

We know two ways to unfocus attention: symmetry is one of them; the other is the over-all where each small part is a sample of what you find elsewhere. In either case, there is at least the possibility of looking anywhere, not just where someone arranged you should

Art is the imitation of nature in her manner of operation


visit on the part of the stranger (who is divine What does Cage mean that this stranger is divine?


You have then turned on the switch that distinguishes man, his ability to change his mind: If you do not change your mind about something when you confront a picture you have not seen before, you are either a stubborn fool or the painting is not very good

Where does beauty begin and where does it end?



Lecture on Nothing / 109

Lecture on Something 128


Let no one imagine that in owning a recording he has the music

Make judgments but accept the consequences.

But the important questions are answered by not liking only but disliking and accepting equally what one likes and dislikes.



45' for a Speaker


The highest purpose is to have no purpose at all

One thing to do with time is this: Measure it.

Earth’s no escape from Heaven.”


Therefore error is a fiction, has, no reality, 10″ in fact. I do not understand how he can make his statement. it seems like he is building to a general statement , but he maybe only talking about composing.


One runs the risk of falling into a marasm of idea if one goes on composing without discovering

There is all the time in the world for studying music, 10″ but for living there is scarcely any time at all. 20″ For living takes place each instant

I myself tend to think of catching trains more than Christianity

There is no 20″ such thing as silence. Something is al- ways happening that makes a sound.

I 41′00″ haven’t the slightest idea of what is good in the world, but instead quite passively, & often against what might be considered a better judgment, accepts what happens.



Where Are We Going? and What Are We Doing? / 194

Indeterminacy f 260

Music Lover' Field Companion / 274



Evaluation:

 My book group read John O’Connell’s Bowie’s Bookshelf. We each decided to read one of the books talked about on the Bookshelf. I chose John Cage’s Silence: Lectures and Writings. My choice of this book goes back 50+ years ago when I was in high school and I heard one of Cage’s pieces-I do not remember which one. As a college freshman, I played a recording of Cage for my existential roommates. They thought it was rubbish. And now I am back to exploring the thought behind his pieces.


I suspect that I really did not comprehend the depth of Cage, so this review may be more about my perception than his writing. I only got about two-thirds of the way through the book. It is a difficult book to read. Both from the conceptual and philosophical perspective presented, as well as from physically reading the material. Many of the essays in the book were lectures given to an audience, almost like a performance. Cage played around with the syntax to coordinate with his concepts of silence and randomness. For example, the chapter I. Changes was written in columns. Each line was to be read at a pace of one per second. When completed, it would be exactly the same length in time as one of his compositions. There were places where only a word or two was on a line or even lines left blank. This was to indicate pauses for silence. Not so much for drama, but in the spirit of randomness. It made for difficult reading.


About the time I listened to Cage, I became a Christian. My world view is different from Cage’s. From what I can tell, Cage did not think there was too much meaning in the world and definitely there was no meaning in music (Music means nothing as a thing). He used music as a catalyst to other things. He emphasized randomness and silence, not as a brief interlude but as foundational. At each turn, the path which Cage would choose would dehumanize the performers, the listeners. They were expected to be mechanical in nature, not adding their own artistry.


At one point in my notes, I wrote it seems like Cage is doing the opposite of what God did in the Genesis story. According to Genesis, God put his spirit into humans. Cage wants to remove any spirit from the music.


If you are a follower of modern music, Cage or philosopher, then this book is probably a worthwhile read. For the rest of us, I would keep a bottle of aspirin by your side, just being careful not to overdose on it.



 
Notes from my book group:

Cage saw the potential in electronic musical instruments. The special function of electrical instruments will be to provide complete control of the overtone structure of tones (as opposed to noises) and to make these tones available in any frequency, amplitude, and duration. Do you think he foresaw the state we are in now? Do you think he would appreciate the use of electronic devices to both compose and perform with?


A central fact for Cage is that There is no such thing as an empty space or an empty time. Explain what he means. Do you agree? What difference does it make?


What makes Beethoven distasteful to Cage? Would that apply to other composers of the period?


Should a composition have meaning? Purpose? What gives it meaning if you think so?


A second major theme is randomness. He consulted charts and the flipping of pennies to produce a quasi-randomness. Do you think a composition which has meaning can be composed this way?


In talking about his compositions, he says that the performer of some of his compositions are more like a contractor reading blueprints than the architecture envisioning the building. He then looks at the performer as an object more inhuman than human, since chance operations brought it into being. Would you perform one of Cage’s compositions? Why is Cage making the performers inhuman?


Emotion takes place in the person who has it. In Cage’s view, music itself does not have emotion or intrinsic value. What is the relationship between music and a person’s emotions? Is Cage right? Does a particular piece have the ability to bring out emotions? Or is this manufactured by a person?


In the introduction, it is said that Thousands of lives were changed as a result of the book’s publication. Was your life affected by reading this book? How so? Why do you think others might be affected? I routinely ask at the end of a book, How do you want your life to change because you read this book? How should it be changed?



Many of these questions are either from or adapted from LitLovers.

Why the title of Silence?

Every story has a world view. Were you able to identify this story’s world view? What was it? How did it affect the story?

In what context was religion talked about in this book?

Why do you think the author wrote this book?

What would you ask the author if you had a chance?

What “takeaways” did you have from this book?

What central ideas does the author present?

Are they personal, sociological, global, political, economic, spiritual, medical, or scientific

Are these idea’s controversial?

To whom and why?

Describe the culture talked about in the book.

How is the culture described in this book different than where we live?

What economic or political situations are described?

Does the author examine economics and politics, family traditions, the arts, religious beliefs, language or food?

How did this book affect your view of the world?

Of how God is viewed?

What questions did you ask yourself after reading this book?

Talk about specific passages that struck you as significant—or interesting, profound, amusing, illuminating, disturbing, sad...?

What was memorable?

 

New Words:
  • anechoic chamber-a room designed to stop reflections or echoes of either sound or electromagnetic waves
  • dodecaphonic-a method of musical composition first devised by Austrian composer Josef Matthias Hauer, who published his "law of the twelve tones" in 1919
  • athematic-not based on the use of themes.
  • atonality-the absence of functional harmony as a primary structural element.
  • dymaxion-a portmanteau of the words dynamic, maximum, and tension; sums up the goal of his study, "maximum gain of advantage from minimal energy input.
  • Synchronicity-the simultaneous occurrence of events which appear significantly related but have no discernible causal connection.


Book References:
  • New Musical Resources by Henry Cowell
  • Essays before a Sonata by Charles Ives
  • Genesis of a Music by Harry Partch
  • I Ching
  • A Year from Monday by John Cage
  • What Is Metaphysics by Heidegger
  • Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond by Michael Nyman
  • Evil and Silence
  • Essay on Rime
  • Chinese Book of Changes
  • Intersections by Morton Feldman
  • Desiderata by Max Ehrmann (poem)
  • A History of Haiku Volume One by R.H. BLYTHE
  • Joe Campbell’s books on mythology

Good Quotes:
  • First Line: Silence by John Cage is the book I’ve reread the most often in my life.
  • Last Line: It behooves us therefore to see each thing directly as it is, be it the sound of a tin whistle or the elegant Lepiota procern.
  • Emotion takes place in the person who has it. Chp Experimental Music
  • There is the possibility when people are crowded together that they will act like sheep rather than nobly. Chp II. Indeterminacy
  • Personality is a flimsy thing on which to build an art. Chp Grace and Clarity
  • Beauty is now underfoot wherever we take the trouble to look. Chp On Robert Rauschenberg, Artist, and His Work
  • Where does beauty begin and where does it end? Chp On Robert Rauschenberg, Artist, and His Work
 
Table of Contents:
  • Foreword to 50th Anniversary Edition
  • Foreword / ix
  • Manifesto / xii
  • The Future of Music: Credo / 3
  • Experimental Music / 7
  • Experimental Music: Doctrine / 13
  • Composition"" Process / 18
  • I. Changes / 18
  • II. Indeterminacy / 35
  • III. Communication / 41
  • Composition / 57
  • To Describe the Process of Composition Used In Music
  • of Changes and Imaginary Landscape No.4 f 57
  • To Describe the Process of Composition Used in Music
  • for Piano 21-52 / 60
  • Forerunner. of Modem Music / 62
  • History of Experimental Music in the United States f 67
  • Erik Satie f 76
  • Edgard Varese / 83
  • Four Statements on the Dance / 86
  • Goal: New Music, New Dance f 87
  • Grace and Clarity /_89
  • In This Day … / 94
  • 2 Pages, 122 Words on Music and Dance / 96
  • On Robert Rauschenberg, Artist, and His Work / 98
  • Lecture on Nothing / 109
  • Lecture on Something f 128
  • 45' for a Speaker / 146
  • Where Are We Going? and What Are We Doing? / 194
  • Indeterminacy f 260
  • Music Lover' Field Companion / 274


References:
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