From: roger@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig)
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical
Subject: Re: JOHN CAGE
Date: 21 Aug 92 01:54:59 GMT
Organization: Princeton University
Originator: news@nimaster

In article <BtB4Hs.n47@quake.sylmar.ca.us> brian@quake.sylmar.ca.us (Brian K. Yoder) writes:
>In article <Dw5PPB2w164w@sys6626.bison.mb.ca> al@sys6626.bison.mb.ca (Haus Der Luge) writes:
>>It struck me recently that those who have been most nasty and rude 
>>towards John Cage's music (a lot of them have, of course, come out of the 
>>woodwork since his untimely death) ... are the people who need his music 
>>the most.

>I suppose I am the kind of "nasty and rude" person you are talking about.

For once, Brian, you're 100% right.

>For what end do you think I "need" cage?  In order to become more bored?

Perhaps you need Cage to learn *not* to be bored by simple things,
things that are worth paying attention to very closely.

>More pretentious?  

Don't worry, Brian, a hundred Cages wouldn't have that effect on you.
If anything, you might learn a little humility, especially of the kind
that would teach you that the yardstick of all things is *not* Brian
Yoder.

>To discover that music isn't anything in particular?

Cage would be of no use to you for that.  If you spent some time paying
attention to Cage (something you've never done, by your own admission;
most of your sources are second- or third-hand, and the rest of your
"information" seems to be made up), you'd learn that music is VERY MUCH
something in particular: it's a form of paying attention, a form of
listening, a form of doing things with sounds.  What music is to you is
anybody's guess; you've certainly never made a useful statement about it
here.  You *have* parroted a few prejudices, and replicated a few
arguments by others, arguments you seem to have some trouble
understanding yourself.  But you've never been able to give -- and
support -- any statements about what music is.   

>TO discover that art has no purpose? 

Um, Brian, *you* told us that a while ago.  You argued against the
utility of art; excluded utilitarian items from the realm of art.  In
some sense, art *demands* a certain purposelessness, a play with
materials that is not driven by any external need.

Cage would teach you what the purposes of art ARE.  If you'll only
listen.

> To discover that beauty is no different than ugliness?  

Cage would be a particularly poor place to look for such a stupid idea.
On the other hand, you might come around to the old idea -- *very* old
-- about the eye of the beholder, or the ear, as the case may be.
You seem to believe that there are some eternal, universally valid
standards of beauty out there, that beauty can be measured empirically.
A course in art history would fix that; or even a few books.  Once
you've digested this radical idea, come around and make beauty.  Or just
pay attention to sound *without* worrying about whether it's beautiful,
which is what Cage was after.  He wasn't after equating this with that;
sometimes he simply didn't concern himself with such issues.

>That rhythm is no better than randomness?  

Again, thishas nothing to do with Cage.  You speak with such authority
-- and yet you've shown us a hundred times over that you're utterly
without a clue regarding John Cage.

>That harmony is no better than discord?

Still irrelevant.  Have you read _Silence_ yet?  If not, why not?

>Please explain, what should I get out of listening to Cage?

Understanding.  Musical experience.  Not the same experience as you'd
get from Beethoven, or from Josquin, or from Paul McCartney; a different
one.  An appreciation of sound.  Sensual experience, perhaps without so
much sorting into patterns and classes and categories.   This is a good
thing to do even if you *like* doing such arrangements, which most of us
do; because once you've done it, you wind up far more sensitive to the
reasons why it's good to make distinctions, or not, depending on what
you want to achieve.

Of course, there's no point in your doing any of this, because you lack
something fundamental that John Cage had: a sense of decency.  He never,
to the best of my knowledge, announced to thousands of people that he
was glad that another person had died, simply because he disagreed with
that person's ideas on music.  

You did that, Brian, and disgusted many of us.  

Roger
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical