A bunch of questions, a stream of consciousness. It seems that writing, music, and poetry, can be just that according to Cage (41-52). I’m right on board with most of our authors as I read them, but then when I start thinking about noise, silence, poetry vs. music all together, it gets even more complex.
This set of readings brought me back to my question from earlier in the week about what constitutes poetry. I’m beginning to think that the definition is arbitrary and based on the reader’s/listener’s ideas and interpretations when listening, and the performer’s/writer’s point of view when composing or performing.
Question 1: Sticking with silence for my first question, I wonder – how can there be more than one type of silence? In “Unheard Music,” Dworkin notes Whitehead’s six types of silence. Though, isn’t silence, silence? Even if devices are put on mute or pause or silent mode, I don’t believe they are necessarily without sound. If there’s any sounded lull or interference, wouldn’t that be noise?
Question 2: How can the idea of relation be truly absent in music or any other composition?
In “Introduction to Selected Gathas,” MacLow expresses relationships between his works and others (like Pete Rose and Anne Tardos) and encourages the performers of his gathas to “produce speech elements or tones in relation with all they hear” (649). Evidently, MacLow acknowledges inspiration and relation while composing and performing and wants others to do the same. This idea makes sense to me. It’s hard for me to imagine anything I compose not having relations with other things and being purely unique. When thinking of intertextuality, like Barthes, relationships are innate and unavoidable.
For these reasons, I have a problem understanding Cage’s idea that it is “possible to make a musical composition the continuity of which is free of individual taste and memory” and with which “the idea of relation being absent, anything may happen” (Imaginary Landscape #4). I may be able to grasp this concept once I have a better understanding of Cage’s composing process and product, but for now I can’t wrap my head around pure authenticity and lack of relation. Even if mistakes are impossible and “beside the point” in such compositions, they still must come from somewhere, right? Don’t they still have an instigation or relation? Cage’s composition process seems very precise with 12 radios and 24 performers, and so on. Though the performance occurs without individual taste or memory or value judgments and with opportunity for uncertainty (Imaginary Landscape #4), I still think relation exists and can never truly be absent (although I’m very likely to change my mind after learning more about Cage and his compositions).
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In your second question, you are doubting that there could be a lack of intention or connotation or intertextuality, even in works such as Cage's. An excellent question - this lack is something I think Cage worked hard to try to, and he may or may not have succeeded. Now, it could be that through the kind of intense formal processes that Cage employs, that there is minimal association/relation, and perhaps only "latent" structures for potential relations, i.e. the listener/reader brings her own but none are there pre-existing. This begs the question as to whether there can be structures of this sort.
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