![]() ![]() Whether or not this recording is ‘music’ is probably debatable, but speaking for myself, I find listening to this to be not only interesting, but also very enjoyable, and although I don’t listen to it often, I still consider this to be one of my prize LPs. There is no heavy rock, rap, disco or techno, instead, you get a lot segments from classical pieces, as well as spoken word recordings, some jazz, folk and other things that are somewhat unintelligible due to all the ambient noise. Indeterminacy ') of three given under the title ' Composition as Process ' at Darmstadt in September 1958. The page numbers in brackets in the introduction to each extract refer to that book. Since this was recorded back in the mid-60s, the various music segments that appear on here reflect that time period. The following extracts are from the book 'Silence: Lectures and Writings by John Cage' (Wesleyan University Press, 1961). Obviously, ‘music’ like this isn’t for everybody, but if you enjoy this sort of thing, “Variations” makes for a great listen. The entire recorded concert lasted for six hours, so this LP, “Variations IV Volume II”, contains just a segment of the original performance. Cage, and his assistant David Tudor, manipulated the different record players and radios while microphones picked up street noise from outside the gallery, as well as laughter and conversation in the gallery bar room. The original “Variations IV’ concert took place at an art gallery in Los Angeles. “Variations IV” continues in that vein as we hear all of these different incongruent sounds colliding to form what might be called ‘music’ for those who want to hear it that way. Nothing preestablished bars the composer from the sounds that he needs. As Cage put it in his Lecture on Nothing: I have nothing to say / and I am saying it. McAlpine, Heather M., From soprano to barking dog : John Cage, the avant garde. His infamous composition “4:33”, consisted of four and a half minutes of silence which challenged the listener to notice the sounds around them as if they were listening to a piece of music. KEYWORDS queer, ethnography, recording, oral history, archive. For those unaware of the work of John Cage, he was a clever composer who tried to find ways to change people’s perceptions of what could be considered music. As Cage explains in the essay, the topicsomethingis ostensibly Morton Feldman, but as he admits, by the end it is about something else, namely Cage’s most recent ideas on. It is for this reason that the enso circle is enigmatic and a powerful tool, fresh in each new moment.If a group of humans improvising some music might be called a jazz combo, then what would you call a group of record players, radios and room microphones doing the same? You might call that John Cage’s “Variations IV”, because that is what this recording consists of, a collage of sounds that come from a couple of phonographs, some radios and some strategically placed microphones all ‘jamming’ together at the same time. Today’s essay is a follow-up to Lecture on Nothing, appropriately titled Lecture on Something, delivered to the Artist’s Club sometime in 1950. When people look into an enso mirror, they see their true nature. With time, one may come to see that an enso circle is a mirror of the viewer’s mind at the moment that the circle is viewed. ![]() While watching the performance consider the role of silence and the audience. This is one of the many possible ways of understanding the term “mirror enso.” Another way is to spend time with the enso while looking into the nature of the mind. 433 is John Cages best known composition in which the performer becomes the observer and the silence invites the sounds, or noises, of the space unfold for four minutes and thirty-three seconds. When only a signature is added to an enso, some say that it is the artist’s way of sharing a self-portrait. In art terms, when there is no inscription, a circle is classified as a “mirror enso” where interpretation and reaction are left up to the viewer. ![]() “Most enso paintings have words written alongside them that gives the viewer a “hint” regarding the ultimate meaning of a particular Zen circle. “The arts of Zen are not intended for utilitarian purposes, or for purely aesthetic enjoyment, but are meant to train the mind, indeed, to bring it into contact with ultimate reality.” – D. Klaus Lang, pianoforte elettrico (Fender Rhodes). As a homage to revolutionary composer John Cage, Robert Wilson performs Cage's Lecture on Nothing, one of the central texts of twentieth-century experimental literature. John Cage (1912-1992): Thirteen Harmonies, for violin and keyboard (1985). Lecture on Nothing Text by John Cage, Performed by Robert Wilson Premiered on Augat the Ruhrtriennale Festival, Jahrhunderthalle, Bochum, Germany Performed in English. “I have nothing to say and I am saying it and that is poetry as I need it” – John Cage (“Lecture on Nothing,” Silence, 109). ![]()
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