X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11]
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.allmusic
Date:         Mon, 17 Aug 1992 11:35:24 EDT
From:         Sonia Kovitz <skovitz@MAGNUS.ACS.OHIO-STATE.EDU>
Subject:      John Cage vs. My Sister
X-To:         allmusic@american.edu

rotcod said to go with it, so here it is... the reader's digest condensed
version of my sister's 4 page paper on Cage (after taking part in a Cage
Festival at NEC a few years ago).  Now that I re-read the paper it turns out
she actually disagrees with him, but since where I come from disagreement can
also be a tribute, please take it in that spirit.  (But she does like something
he did very early, called Pieces for Prepared Piano, that involves thumb tacks
being stuck on certain of the piano strings/hammers?--she said the result was
interesting percussive music that sounded Balinese).  so here goes:

Cage (1957): "One may give up the desire to control sound, clear his mind of
music, and set about discovering means to let sounds be themselves rather than
vehicles for man-made theories or expressions of human sentiments... 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."

[my sister]: Cage suggests that we clear our minds of music and let sounds be
themselves.  I sense that he is confusing or misapplying the Eastern
philosophies which he so admires.  I have chosen a brief stanza from the Tao to
Ching that I imagine Cage would point to as justification for, or inspiration
for, his compositional philosophy:

The Master allows things to happen.
He shapes events as they come.
He steps out of the way
and lets the Tao speak for itself.

In Taoism and Zen Buddhism, a person is encouraged not to struggle to control
what can't be controlled, but to accept What Is without imposing his own
needs and wishes. A Master is one who is adept at living at peace with the
world, regardless of the world's difficulties and apparent contradictions.  The
advice given by the sages is advice for *living*, not for creating a work of
art... It is not contrary to the spirit of Zen to express oneself directly,
since the Master *embodies* the Tao, or Way, or Buddha, or God...

[illustration re: Zen calligraphy deleted here]

It certainly sounds very Zen to aim for aimless drops, but here is an easy
point of confusion.  The Zen Master is supposed to be aimless in that he is
free of ulterior motives, that he lives each moment fully for that moment's
sake, not to achieve something. [....]  Whatever you do, you do it fully, with
all of your mind, not looking beyond for a result.  The calligrapher paints for
the experience of each stroke, not to make a perfect product.  Because he is in
harmony with the world, any "accidents" that happen will be harmonious.  This
is not the same as being sloppy, or painting without being mindful of form, or
leaving it up to chance.  A confusion on this point, I believe, may have
allowed Cage to be side-tracked by *non*-musical ideas (fascination with chance
happenings), pulling him away from the real work of composition because of a
mistaken notion of inappropriate control. [....]

Cage, seeing that he cannot control sound, makes the mistake of relinquishing
control of a musical train of thought as well. [....]

Cage's attempt to apply Zen ideas to actual compositional methods seems to me
to result from "thinking about," not "thinking in" music.
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU