http://blog.gmane.org/gmane.music.john-cage hourly 1 1901-01-01T00:00+00:00 http://gmane.org/img/gmane-25t.png http://gmane.org http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.music.john-cage/4689 <pre>Dear friends and colleagues, At the end of June, an ensemble comprised of Frank Gratkowski, Hans W. Koch, Anton Lukoszevieze, Lucia Mense and myself will record a double CD at Deutschlandfunk in Cologne, featuring works by James Tenney, Michael Pisaro and young, emerging composers from Los Angeles, California. The album is scheduled to appear early next year on edition wandelweiser records – this, in collaboration with World Edition. The project is entitled, "Cage's Grandchildren" and many of the works received their European premiere earlier this season in Luxembourg. However, we need your support! For that purpose, we have set up a project page at "kickstarter". May I kindly ask that you take a few minutes of your time, peruse our page, watch the lovely video that Anton created and consider making a donation in support of our endeavor? Any amount that you can give helps us to bring this wonderful project into being. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1843883998/cages-grandchildren In recent years a generation of composers have congregated around the California Institute of the Arts in Los Angeles and have upheld the notion of an experimental music, one that is predicated upon sound phenomena. Two composers who have taught at „Calarts“ are mainly responsible for this development: James Tenney (1934-2006) and Michael Pisaro (b. 1961). While Tenney’s influence was primarily based upon the in-depth study of alternative tuning systems, Pisaro has provided a vital impulse, in part due to his affiliation with the composer group, Wandelweiser: the incorporation of natural materials and objects like stones as instruments and the inclusion of field recordings, text based scores, and the balance between sound and silence. Casey Anderson , Scott Cazan, Chris Kallmyer, Catherine Lamb, Liam Mooney, Mark So, Laura Steenberge, Quentin Tolimieri, Tashi Wada, Michael Winter represent an emerging generation of composers that, while tracing along the paths of Pisaro and Tenney, are also creating their own singular voices. This development would of course been unimaginable without Cage. Hence, we can safely say that the designation Cage’s „grandchildren“ seems rather apt. Thank you for your attention. Best regards Seth Josel --------------------------------- Seth Josel Schönleinstr. 25 D-10967 Berlin Tel. +49-30-695 684 27 mobil. +49-(0)176-617 992 63 - neu/new Email: sfjosel&lt; at &gt;snafu.de http://josel.sheerpluck.de http://www.myspace.com/sethjosel Skype: sjosel </pre> sfjosel< at >snafu.de 2013-05-15T12:27:13 http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.music.john-cage/4688 <pre>Many of you will already know of the recent performance of HPSCHD in New York City. For all you Cage and Hiller fans out there, here's a link to the NY Times review: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/06/arts/music/hpschd-at-eyebeam.html?_r=0 Note the shadowy picture of me and my page turner Chris Mark. There is a lot of other stuff on the Internet about this performance, have a look. I am writing to inquire if anyone on the SILENCE list knows of another harpsichordist who has played Solo VI. I recorded the piece in 1969, and have played Solo VI (as well as Soli I, II and VII) several times, although not in recent years. Until these performances, that is. My understanding is that yes, others have played Solo VI, but I do not know who they are. Any information would be greatly appreciated. I would like to network with folks who have played this piece and discuss the formidable challenges it presents. For the curious — Solo VI takes reiterations of the Mozart Dice Game and inserts a chronological series of piano pieces: the Beethoven "Appassionata" Sonata, Chopin D minor prelude, Schumann "Reconnaissance," Gottschalk "The Banjo," Schoenberg Op. 11, Busoni "Sonatina Secunda," Cage "Winter Music" and the Hiller Fifth Piano Sonata. The right and left hands are not coordinated, so one can be playing Schumann in the right hand, Busoni in the left for example. The original tempi of the pieces are maintained. The first 30 pages and the last 30 are quite playable, but after page 30 things get hairy and fearsome polyrhythms accumulate. Between pages 50 and 80 the piece is for all intents and purposes impossible, although by the sixth time through in two days I was very close. (After 44 years you would think I could play this thing in my sleep!) Playing this piece is exhilarating beyond words, and the performances at Eyebeam were visually, as well as aurally stunning. Bravi tutti! </pre> Bruce, Neely 2013-05-13T00:47:23 http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.music.john-cage/4687 <pre>Ethnomusicologist and friend of John Cage Fredric Lieberman (co-author of the Lou Harrison biography) has just passed away. Here is a remembrance from ethnomusicologist Robert Garfias, posted to the H-ASIA listserv by Frank Conlon &lt;conlon AT U.WASHINGTON DOT EDU&gt;  =================== H-ASIA May 7, 2013 A further obituary for Fredric Lieberman ***************************************************************** Ed. note: My friend and former colleague Robert Garfias has kindly sent along his obituary note for Fred Lieberman which will appear in the Ethnomusicology Newsletter. FFC ---------------------------------------------------------------- From: Robert Garfias &lt;rgarfias AT uci DOT edu&gt; Frederic Lieberman 1940-2013 When Frederic Lieberman embarked on his career in ethnomusicology, the discipline was still in its very early stages. The discipline was just forming and Fred played an important role in its development. The first generation of ethnomusicologists, all European, were trained in such fields as mathematics, physics and law. The next generation of ethnomusicologists, into which both Fred and I fell, were mostly performing musicians or composers. We were all people who were fascinated by the structure and mechanics of music and wanted to get closer to the makings of all the musics of the world that were, post WW II, suddenly becoming accessible. Training in ethnomusicology at UCLA was rigorous and required that we each go through thorough training in Western music equivalent to what was required of those in Western Musicology. In addition to this we had training and research in ethnomusicology. Fred came to the UCLA Ethnomusicology Program with a varied set of skills under his belt.He started out as an undergraduate major in music composition at Eastman but was also taking classes at Rochester in Chinese. He had completed an MA at the University of Hawaii. He was fluent in French and had very strong backgrounds in both electronics and mathematics. In fact, some years ago when my colleague, the mathematical psychologist, Vladimir LeFebvre, asked who might examine one of his theories as it touched on music, Fred Lieberman was the only ethnomusicologist that I knew who could possibly decipher and understand the math. Fred was a film maker as well and made an excellent documentary on music in Sikkim. He successfully edited a set of my films of the then living African American Blues musicians. He had a long and close connection with John Cage, wrote on the music of John Adams, and he authored two books on our mutual friend, Lou Harrison. Each of Fred's many enterprises was undertaken with a exacting level of professional skill. While we ethnomusicologists of the 50s and 60s each went off around the world studying the music that would become our point of research focus;- and indeed Fred did work intensely on Chinese, Vietnamese and Japanese music;- he did once confess to me that he was ill at ease at the idea of being a "foreign expert" on someone else's music. He had even suggested working on the guilds of piano tuners and their lore and technique in the U.S. for his Ph. D. thesis at UCLA, but that was not permitted and so he continued to work on Chinese music. He taught at the University of Maryland and at Brown University before coming to the University of Washington. I hired Fred at the University of Washington in 1975 and that was to me the high point in the development of the UW program, the time when it really began to coalesce. Then a few years later Fred and I hired Lorraine Sakata and then Dan Neuman. That period in my memory remains a kind of Golden Age. One of my happiest and most satisfying memories is of a joint seminar that Fred and I taught together assisted by Park Heon-Lin at the University of Washington on the ancient court musics of China, Korea and Japan. It was a magical sharing of information that no one of us could have done alone and, although it is said that it is not a good situation when the teacher and those being taught are being enlightened at the same time, this is exactly what made this class so memorable for me. As a colleague Fred was a happy, energetic and resourceful ally. He was a "can do" sort of person with virtually limitless ideas. During those happy years we had so many projects going, that I cannot recall them all. Many of them came to naught like our attempt to create our own record label, Golden Oriole Records, but many succeeded and we went on to others. Later he developed a connection with the Grateful Dead and that became a major focus for him for many years and resulted in numerous publications. Most recently he became fascinated by questions of musical forensics and he served as an expert witness in cases of music plagiarism. He was just embarking on this new career during his last years and with renewed enthusiasm. Sadly, I always felt that I could only keep up with a small portion of Fred's many interests. His areas of expertise were so wide as to be formidable. There was no one I knew who could match his universe of knowledge and expertise although we all might try and at least listen to him with interest. He was never arrogant or overbearing and I never saw him angry. He was always patient and open to hearing others out. He has now suddenly left an emptiness in all of us that will not be easily filled and a pang of regret at all those unfinished conversations. Robert Garfias ------------------ Robert Robert Garfias Professor of Anthropology UCI www.socsci.uci.edu/rgarfias rgarfias AT uci DOT edu</pre> David Badagnani 2013-05-12T01:49:51 http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.music.john-cage/4686 <pre>So Jim Rosenberg's original mesostic code has never been ported to the web? What was it written in? On Sat, Apr 27, 2013 at 1:23 AM, Stefano Pocci &lt;stefanodoug76&lt; at &gt;gmail.com&gt;wrote: </pre> mIEKAL aND 2013-04-27T12:05:38 http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.music.john-cage/4685 <pre> Hi Zac, thanks for your message that seemed to be quite appropriate in this moment. After the removal of the mesostic generator, I decided in fact to build one myself too. Instead of Python, which I don't know, I chose Java (which I know a little) and just yesterday I managed to complete the most difficult part - I thought - that is the construction of a mesostic according to the 100% rule. I still haven't limited the number of wing words and if you say that's quite a feat also... well, then I'm not half way through yet :-) I originally thought to trim the mesostic once obtained a very wide one (with a lot of wing words), but your on-the-fly random process approach seems more challenging, from a programming point of view at least. So far in my trials, I found that long horizontal lines might appear only at the very beginning, in the very first line where you need to pay attention to the first mesoLetter only. But it depends on the text and the mesostic words of course. And the language too: I'm Italian and I haven't yet considered the letters with accents such as è, ò, à, ù, ì that are so present in my language. Unlike the umlauts and strange marks above or below letters inside the Finnish, Estonian, Swedish and other languages vocabularies, those accents are not new letters of the alphabet. It is just an accent added to the original letter, which I presume, must be then considered during the construction of a mesostic. What I created is more a program that 'writes through' a whole text, but I bet my program will have some troubles with very large texts. The reason while I embraced Java is that I would like to make my application run on a website, therefore I will need to study how to make it available to everyone once it is finished. What I did not consider however, was that maybe languages like Python work really fine with strings... perhaps I'll talk about these more technical details with you off list, if you don't mind. Keep you posted, ciao </pre> Stefano Pocci 2013-04-27T06:23:10 http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.music.john-cage/4684 <pre>I was sad that the online "mesostic" generator was taken down and replaced with a juvenile message instead of being fixed, so I whipped up a generator in the Python programming language. It obeys the 100% rule, but I was surprised at how many other decisions I had to make about how to limit the number of wing words, how to actually go about selecting the words with the mesostic letter, etc. Basically, I choose the word by searching from a random point in the text. Then, I select up to 12 wing words, with the 12 distributed randomly on either side of the center word (for example, a line might have a max of 3 on the left, max of 9 on the right). Only rarely do you ever get 12 since usually a rule violation typically occurs first. I also made it circular, so that the first letter obeys the rule with respect to the last letter--that's to avoid having conspicuously long starting and ending lines. I did not try to prevent the same word being used more than once--I seem to recall repeats in some of Cage's mesostics, and sometimes you don't have a choice if your source text doesn't have many Zs, Js, etc. The next step is to figure out how to get this on a website with a usable interface. It's been a fun way to refresh my Python skills. Here's an example based on 10 iterations of "Mesostic" and the Wikipedia entry on Cage as a source text. Suggestions welcome. Hope you've got a fixed width font. -Zac Bond that case I will devote My AftEr See Of 1953. While at Black muSic. The same Cowell also advIsed that, before 1933, Cage IMitation, partnEr Started 4'33?.[109] The develOpment iS The July 2012 "performed an engrossIng art heroes".[115] Centenary IndeterMinacy: criticizEd inStrument during the entire included David TudOr, M. C. aS well had Troubled Cage sIx to aChieve a bubble desert at YuMa, Arizona, on appEal muSic III, IV and V, which are On a chamber Said, "In Ryoanji, eTc.) he's an Inventor-of sCulpture While Much of and John CagE waS Of with Schoenberg in California: The In Cage pursued a probleMs is and groups in a largE iS prepared pianO (1950-51) Cage had uSed chance on a few earlier in Four ParTs (1950) Cage In a faCt, a "happening" is systeM, chancE waS "an accOrding Cage waS (1982). These were Is not Consist just of text favorite books, and one froM which of thE Spent the That cOnvinced me that the fragmentS wiTh of some 550 possIble aggregates, sound produCtion, or the Several Months incidEnt for a Single technique."[96] PrOminent The piece waS Cage lefT performer's lIkes and of works, the so-Called situation in 1951 worsened so Much that, (1961-62), a work basEd piano (1950-51) uSed Cage invited unOfficially. waS nighTs, and four hours of leanIngs.[68] One11 1928. Often Crossing On Wed, Apr 17, 2013 at 9:48 AM, Goldstein, Louis &lt;louieg&lt; at &gt;wfu.edu&gt; wrote: </pre> Zachary Bond 2013-04-27T04:33:40 http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.music.john-cage/4683 <pre>Dear all, Time to send a few words on my johncage.info website. As you have all noticed it disappeared from the web. As with Josh, I have been far too busy with other things as well. I hadn't been updating the site in over a year and I thought it was time to stop with it and not renewing my contract with the webhosting company. Tough decision, after so many years. Since I permitted the Cage Trust taking all my material, incorporating it into their own Cage database, I think it will be in good hands (even though their result so far is rather limited). Thanks to all for supporting me and for the nice words I received over the years. Best wishes from Amsterdam, André Chaudron 2013/4/21 Rod Stasick &lt;rod&lt; at &gt;stasick.org&gt; </pre> Andre Chaudron 2013-04-22T19:55:53 http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.music.john-cage/4682 <pre>Well, my email to André has been returned, so I think that any of you using Facebook may have to have a go at contacting him. Also, thanks Josh for the Duffie/Cage interview. I spoke with Bruce Duffie earlier this year about something completely different (about a specific program and radio program host on WNIB) and he was very cordial. Nice to see this interview. ⻚ --- http://stasick.org On apr 21, 2556 BE, at 09:31, Goldstein, Louis wrote: </pre> Rod Stasick 2013-04-21T15:20:16 http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.music.john-cage/4681 <pre>I wrote André a short note and hope for a reply. He has a Facebook page, so any of you who also have one can drop him a line there I suppose (I don't have one): https://www.facebook.com/andre.chaudron It was a nice resource. Archive.org shows that it was taken down probably near the beginning of 2013. ㇀ --- http://stasick.org On apr 21, 2556 BE, at 09:31, Goldstein, Louis wrote: </pre> Rod Stasick 2013-04-21T15:02:33 http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.music.john-cage/4680 <pre>And thanks again, Josh, for all the work you've kept together on your website. It's one of my bookmarked resources for Cage. The question about Andre has been asked a few times now, so apparently no one here knows what happened. What I miss most about his website is his chronological list of works, with pop-up windows containing additional information for most of them. Louie On Sun, Apr 21, 2013 at 2:47 AM, Josh Ronsen &lt;joshronsen&lt; at &gt;yahoo.com&gt; wrote: </pre> Goldstein, Louis 2013-04-21T14:31:27 http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.music.john-cage/4679 <pre>Hello. I haven't made any updates to John Cage Online (http://ronsen.org/cagelinks.html) in a while. Some people have submitted information and I've just been busy with other things. This evening I did find a new (to me) interview conducted by Bruce Duffie in 1987. The link to it is now on my page. If you know of any other web sources that you think I should list, please let me know. What videos from YouTube should I post? Right now I mostly have links to what I consider are important historical videos that feature Cage. Mostly, not all. I wrote this in the past, but I have links to many of Cage's paintings; please look at these before their hosting pages disappear. Some I originally linked to have already disappeared. Also, and maybe I missed any news posted here, I do try to read every digest as they arrive, but what happened to André Chaudron's site (http://johncage.info)? I use my page as a starting point for when i am thinking about Cage, and usually I go to Chaudron's site next. Thanks for any info, -Josh Ronsen in Austin, Texas</pre> Josh Ronsen 2013-04-21T06:47:31 http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.music.john-cage/4678 <pre>cage talks about the first time he has the idea of preparing the piano for bachanale: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zmgLF8I3As at 15:00 best V</pre> Vitor Rua 2013-04-19T10:15:28 http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.music.john-cage/4677 <pre>p.s: i forgot the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zmgLF8I3As best V </pre> Vitor Rua 2013-04-19T10:10:47 http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.music.john-cage/4676 <pre>Dear Chris, on this film he talks about preparing the piano at 15:00 !!! But I think he talks more after this... Yours, Vítor On Apr 16, 2013, at 2:57 PM, cc &lt;ccutler&lt; at &gt;clara.co.uk&gt; wrote: </pre> Vitor Rua 2013-04-19T10:10:09 http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.music.john-cage/4675 <pre>Right - they were "puny mesostics," barely there. Wing words are another thing that that computer program didn't do. I think after you find the next word that straddles the mesostic letter you can continue as far as the text will let you and still observe the rule. And that is a matter of choice, right? John suggested putting a limit on how many characters a line could be, 43, but I think he always mentioned that as a suggested number. Louie, checking his memory On Wed, Apr 17, 2013 at 8:55 AM, Stefano Pocci &lt;stefanodoug76&lt; at &gt;gmail.com&gt;wrote: </pre> Goldstein, Louis 2013-04-17T13:48:33 http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.music.john-cage/4674 <pre> The page is down now as someone said earlier. I have a question about "Writing throughs..." however. When extracting mesostics out of a pre-existing text, would you only take words containing the meso-letters - provided that either the 50% or the 100% rule are respected - or would you also keep the words in between those containing the meso-letters which still respect the before mentioned rules? Just asking, as the product of that online application basically had one word per line. /Thin/ mesostics, so to speak. </pre> Stefano Pocci 2013-04-17T12:55:57 http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.music.john-cage/4673 <pre>I'm not sure how this worked. Could you expand? Date: Tue, 16 Apr 2013 22:50:36 -0400 From: marc.thorman&lt; at &gt;gmail.com To: rob.haskins&lt; at &gt;gmail.com CC: dpmiller&lt; at &gt;world.std.com; jeremy&lt; at &gt;jeremymillar.org; silence&lt; at &gt;list.mail.virginia.edu Subject: [silence] Re: Re: Re: Imaginary Landscape No.1 the recording session for the mode version was interesting, the performers stopped takes when they made a mistake . It was of necessity an honor system. For the final take they were instructed to go all the way through even if they flubbed during their part. On Tue, Apr 16, 2013 at 9:42 AM, Rob Haskins &lt;rob.haskins&lt; at &gt;gmail.com&gt; wrote: I'm quite fond of the one recently released on Mode. :) On Tue, Apr 16, 2013 at 9:38 AM, David P Miller &lt;dpmiller&lt; at &gt;world.std.com&gt; wrote: Hello, Jeremy- I'm only familiar with one recording, so I can't make a comparison. But the performance on the "25th Anniversary Concert" recording from 1958 (now on CD) represents the piece well, I think. Best wishes, David M. On Tue, 16 Apr 2013, Jeremy Millar wrote: I was wondering which recording of 'Imaginary Landscape No.1' people considered their favourite? I understand that there isn't a 'best'... Best wishes, Jeremy -- </pre> Dionysis Boukouvalas 2013-04-17T06:33:07 http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.music.john-cage/4672 <pre>the recording session for the mode version was interesting, the performers stopped takes when they made a mistake . It was of necessity an honor system. For the final take they were instructed to go all the way through even if they flubbed during their part. On Tue, Apr 16, 2013 at 9:42 AM, Rob Haskins &lt;rob.haskins&lt; at &gt;gmail.com&gt; wrote: </pre> Marc Thorman 2013-04-17T02:50:36 http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.music.john-cage/4671 <pre>he also talks at some length about it in the recordings that accompany the book of his norton chair lectures , I-VI On Tue, Apr 16, 2013 at 11:03 AM, Stefano Pocci &lt;stefanodoug76&lt; at &gt;gmail.com&gt;wrote: </pre> Marc Thorman 2013-04-17T02:45:56 http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.music.john-cage/4670 <pre> Rob is correct. I've recently used that documentary for a little talk about John and you can find it at Ubuweb: http://www.ubu.com/film/cage_masters.html The preparation snippet begins around 7.30 min. </pre> Stefano Pocci 2013-04-16T15:03:05 http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.music.john-cage/4669 <pre>there's one in the Allan Miller documentary, "I have Nothing to Say and I am Saying It," immediately preceding Margaret Leng Tan's performance of, I think, *In the Name of the Holocaust*. On Tue, Apr 16, 2013 at 9:57 AM, cc &lt;ccutler&lt; at &gt;clara.co.uk&gt; wrote: </pre> Rob Haskins 2013-04-16T14:07:46 Search the mailing list at Gmane query http://search.gmane.org/?group=$group=gmane.music.john-cage