week 10
John Cage - rhythmic structure, exoticism and art
http://rhoadley.net/presentations/mic2b_w10.pdf
1
Early Cage Serialism: Two Pieces for Piano (1935)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5rI-jqFPRE
http://rhoadley.net/presentations/mic2b_w10.pdf
2
Two Pieces for Piano analysis
Analysis (Nicholls Cambridge Companion to Cage
Note
+ Unusual, 'un-Schoenberg-like' use of serial
techniques
+ No articulation or expression markings at all.
What do you think this says?
+ Unusual use of barring showing a particular
interest in display of rhythmic motives.
http://rhoadley.net/presentations/mic2b_w10.pdf
3
First Construction in Metal (1939)
audio:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGMEPgXUoLw
http://rhoadley.net/presentations/mic2b_w10.pdf
4
video with performers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVAbMtxRLOQ
http://rhoadley.net/presentations/mic2b_w10.pdf
5
First Construction in Metal analysis
Link to paper
http://www.jesseguessford.com/Projects/Papers/1stconstruction.pdf
(p14)
— Note in particular its sounding similarity to
Gamelan (metrical rhythms). Analysis shows use of
metrical, revolving cells.
http://rhoadley.net/presentations/mic2b_w10.pdf
6
Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano
Sonata no 1 - note and discuss preparations
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fPSz-o4zzY
http://rhoadley.net/presentations/mic2b_w10.pdf
7
Sonata no 5 - try imagining what it sounds like first, then play it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zr8gTKDQ7NQ
http://rhoadley.net/presentations/mic2b_w10.pdf
8
Links with other art forms: sonatas XIV and XV and Richard Lippold Gemini
http://rhoadley.net/presentations/mic2b_w10.pdf
9
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n05uHZWeTfI
http://rhoadley.net/presentations/mic2b_w10.pdf
10
Sonata no 3 - See Wikipedia analysis:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fPSz-o4zzY
http://rhoadley.net/presentations/mic2b_w10.pdf
11
Exoticism
http://rhoadley.net/presentations/mic2b_w10.pdf
12
Colin McPhee Ostinatos from Tabuh Tabuhan (1936)
http://rhoadley.net/presentations/mic2b_w10.pdf
13
Colin McPhee Nocturne from Tabuh Tabuhan (1936)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-T-ls5EiIs
http://rhoadley.net/presentations/mic2b_w10.pdf
14
Harry Partch (from earlier week)
http://rhoadley.net/presentations/mic2b_w10.pdf
15
Lou Harrison
Lou Harrison: Gending Pak Chokro (1976)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMTvK9lUnnY
http://rhoadley.net/presentations/mic2b_w10.pdf
16
Bubaran Robert:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yuWsdew6V8
http://rhoadley.net/presentations/mic2b_w10.pdf
17
Philemon & Baukis, Lou Harrison
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Y4SRm1xKyg
http://rhoadley.net/presentations/mic2b_w10.pdf
18
Harrison and Cage (1941)
Double Music
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmDTXj0mklM
http://rhoadley.net/presentations/mic2b_w10.pdf
19
Europe: Olivier Messaien
Many influences including
+ Serialism and Webern
+ Orientalism/exoticism
+ Indian music, in particular the rhythmic aspects
of ragas
+ Japanese music and Zen Buddhism
+ Roman Catholic plainsong
http://rhoadley.net/presentations/mic2b_w10.pdf
20
Anoushka Shankar Indian Classical Raga
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wra4p4zARw
http://rhoadley.net/presentations/mic2b_w10.pdf
21
Messiaen Et Expecto Ressurectionem Morturorum
Note particularly:
— Use of extremes (silence, soli, tutti, etc.)
— Klangfarbenmelodie (colour including
synaesthesia)
— Use of metrical rhythms
— Birdsong
(contd.)
http://rhoadley.net/presentations/mic2b_w10.pdf
22
— instrumentation: no strings (like Stravinsky
Symphony of Psalms), expanded metal percussion: 3
sets of cowbells (C5-D7, C4-C5 and F3-B3),
tubular bells, 6 gongs, 3 tam-tams.
http://rhoadley.net/presentations/mic2b_w10.pdf
23
Highly religious - movements are titled:
— "Des profondeurs de l'abîme, je crie vers toi,
Seigneur: Seigneur, écoute ma voix!"
— "Le Christ, ressuscité des morts, ne meurt plus;
la mort n'a plus sur lui d'empire."
— "L'heure vient où les morts entendront la voix du
Fils de Dieu..."
http://rhoadley.net/presentations/mic2b_w10.pdf
24
— "Ils ressusciteront, glorieux, avec un nom
nouveau -- dans le concert joyeux des étoiles et
les acclamations des fils du ciel."
— "Et j'entendis la voix d'une foule immense..."
http://rhoadley.net/presentations/mic2b_w10.pdf
25
Oivier Messiaen - Petites esquisses d'oiseaux (1985) for piano (birdsong)
note metrical but uneven rhythms
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hq49555qh5g
http://rhoadley.net/presentations/mic2b_w10.pdf
26
2 "Le Christ, ressuscité des morts, ne meurt plus; la mort n'a plus sur lui
d'empire."
— 5:30 second movement
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3f4qdJHatNM
http://rhoadley.net/presentations/mic2b_w10.pdf
27
Cage, art and minimalism
http://rhoadley.net/presentations/mic2b_w10.pdf
28
Cage 4'33
Music? Soundscape? Joke? Conceptual art?
http://rhoadley.net/presentations/mic2b_w10.pdf
29
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zY7UK-6aaNA
http://rhoadley.net/presentations/mic2b_w10.pdf
30
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcHnL7aS64Y
http://rhoadley.net/presentations/mic2b_w10.pdf
31
Is John Cage's 4'33'' music?: Prof. Julian Dodd at
TEDxUniversityOfManchester
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTCVnKROlos
http://rhoadley.net/presentations/mic2b_w10.pdf
32
Mike Batt and Peters Edition
Silent music dispute resolved
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/2276621.stm
but...
Wombles composer Mike Batt's silence legal row 'a
scam'
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-11964995
http://rhoadley.net/presentations/mic2b_w10.pdf
33
Malevich Black Suprematic Square 1915
http://rhoadley.net/presentations/mic2b_w10.pdf
34
Malevich Suprematist Composition: White on White 1918
"A new visual language for a new world"
http://rhoadley.net/presentations/mic2b_w10.pdf
35
Rauschenberg white paintings 1951 - "Rauschenberg
can be seen as presaging Minimalism by a decade."
http://rhoadley.net/presentations/mic2b_w10.pdf
36
Rauschenberg white paintings 1951
"From 1951 to 1953, Robert Rauschenberg made a
number of artworks that explore the limits and very
definition of art. These works recall and effectively
extend the notion of the artist as creator of ideas,
a concept first broached by Marcel Duchamp (1887–
1968) with his iconic readymades of the early
twentieth century.
http://rhoadley.net/presentations/mic2b_w10.pdf
37
With Erased de Kooning Drawing (1953), Rauschenberg
set out to discover whether an artwork could be
produced entirely through erasure - an act focused
on the removal of marks rather than their
accumulation."
Source: http://www.sfmoma.org/explore/collection/
artwork/25846##ixzz3XkFjuNZ8
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
http://rhoadley.net/presentations/mic2b_w10.pdf
38
De Kooning Woman I 1950-52
http://rhoadley.net/presentations/mic2b_w10.pdf
39
http://rhoadley.net/presentations/mic2b_w10.pdf
40
Rauschenberg discusses one of his most controversial
works
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpCWh3IFtDQ
http://rhoadley.net/presentations/mic2b_w10.pdf
41
Also see: KLF and Rachel Whiteread
see in particular from 5:00; 5:45 KLF award; part
5-1:22 film opening
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4uQtOQwLGE
http://rhoadley.net/presentations/mic2b_w10.pdf
42
— Michael Landy Break Down (2001)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hYUnkW4sNA
http://rhoadley.net/presentations/mic2b_w10.pdf
43
Documentary Drama "Duchamp's Urinal" on BOB
http://bobnational.net/record/285772
http://rhoadley.net/presentations/mic2b_w10.pdf
44
A History of Art in Three Colours - White - on BOB
http://bobnational.net/record/134175
http://rhoadley.net/presentations/mic2b_w10.pdf
45
And finally, John Cage Water Walk_ performance on a game show (1960)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSulycqZH-U
http://rhoadley.net/presentations/mic2b_w10.pdf
46
Follow-up Work
• Have an outline and bibliography of your major
essay ready for week 11, we will discuss them in
brief individual tutorials we will arrange between
the course tutors. You should have an outline
showing the points you are going to make, the
piece(s) you will investigate as an example, and the
sources (journals, books, scores, recordings) you
are using to do this. We can save a lot of tears
http://rhoadley.net/presentations/mic2b_w10.pdf
47
Points to consider
• What did Cage consider the primary fault of all
music since the Renaissance?
• What are the most fundamental aspects of any
organised sound?
• What is the relationship between ‘global’ and
‘local’ in most composition?
• How does the West usually appropriate music of
other cultures?
http://rhoadley.net/presentations/mic2b_w10.pdf
48
• How appropriate is it for cultures to utilise
other materials? Are there any good or bad examples?
http://rhoadley.net/presentations/mic2b_w10.pdf
49
Thank you. Any questions?
http://rhoadley.net/presentations/mic2b_w10.pdf
50