Silence. John Cage

with such sharp clarity that anyone has the opportunity of having his habits blown away like dust.—For this purpose the prepared piano is also useful, especially in its recent forms where, by alterations during a performance, an otherwise static gamut situation becomes changing. Stringed instruments (not string-players) are very instructive, voices too; and sitting still anywhere (the stereophonic, multiple-loud-speaker manner of operation in the everyday production of sounds and noises) listening …

      QUESTION: I understand Feldman divides all pitches into high, middle, and low, and simply indicates how many in a given range are to be played, leaving the choice up to the performer.

      ANSWER: Correct. That is to say, he used sometimes to do so; I haven’t seen him lately. It is also essential to remember his notation of super- and subsonic vibrations (Marginal Intersection No. 1).

      QUESTION: That is, there are neither divisions of the “canvas” nor “frame” to be observed?

      ANSWER: On the contrary, you must give the closest attention to everything.

      * * *

      QUESTION: And timbre?

      ANSWER: No wondering what’s next. Going lively on “through many a perilous situation.” Did you ever listen to a symphony orchestra?

      * * *

      QUESTION: Dynamics?

      ANSWER: These result from what actively happens (physically, mechanically, electronically) in producing a sound. You won’t find it in the books. Notate that. As far as too loud goes: “follow the general outlines of the Christian life.”

      QUESTION: I have asked you about the various characteristics of a sound; how, now, can you make a continuity, as I take it your intention is, without intention? Do not memory, psychology—

      ANSWER: “—never again.”

      QUESTION: How?

      ANSWER: Christian Wolff introduced space actions in his compositional process at variance with the subsequently performed time actions. Earle Brown devised a composing procedure in which events, following tables of random numbers, are written out of sequence, possibly anywhere in a total time now and possibly anywhere else in the same total time next. I myself use chance operations, some derived from the I-Ching, others from the observation of imperfections in the paper upon which I happen to be writing. Your answer: by not giving it a thought.

      QUESTION: Is this athematic?

      ANSWER: Who said anything about themes? It is not a question of having something to say.

      QUESTION: Then what is the purpose of this “experimental” music?

      ANSWER: No purposes. Sounds.

      QUESTION: Why bother, since, as you have pointed out, sounds are continually happening whether you produce them or not?

      ANSWER: What did you say? I’m still—

      QUESTION: I mean—But is this music?

      ANSWER: Ah! you like sounds after all when they are made up of vowels and consonants. You are slow-witted, for you have never brought your mind to the location of urgency. Do you need me or someone else to hold you up? Why don’t you realize as I do that nothing is accomplished by writing, playing, or listening to music? Otherwise, deaf as a doornail, you will never be able to hear anything, even what’s well within earshot.

      QUESTION: But, seriously, if this is what music is, I could write it as well as you.

      ANSWER: Have I said anything that would lead you to think I thought you were stupid?

COMPOSITION AS PROCESS

      The following three lectures were given at Darmstadt (Germany) in September 1958. The third one, with certain revisions, is a lecture given earlier that year at Rutgers University in New Jersey, an excerpt from which was published in the Village Voice, New York City, in April 1958.

I. Changes

      Having been asked by Dr. Wolfgang Steinecke, Director of the Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik at Darmstadt, to discuss in particular my Music of Changes, I decided to make a lecture within the time length of the Music of Changes (each line of the text whether speech or silence requiring one second for its performance), so that whenever I would stop speaking, the corresponding part of the Music of Changes itself would be played. The music is not superimposed on the speech but is heard only in the interruptions of the speech—which, like the lengths of the paragraphs themselves, were the result of chance operations.

       Note to ebook reader: what may appear to be missing lines in this section are intentional.

      This is a lec-

      ture on changes

      that have taken

      place in my com-

      position means,

      with particu-

      lar reference

      to what, a dec-

      ade ago, I

      termed “structure” and

      “method.” By “struc-

      ture” was meant the

      division of

      a whole into

      parts; by “method,”

      the note-to-note

      procedure. Both

      structure and meth-

      od (and also

      “material”—

      the sounds and si-

      lences of a

      composition)

      were, it seemed to

      me then, the prop-

      er concern of

      the mind (as op-

      posed to the heart)

      (one’s ideas

      of order as

      opposed to one’s

      spontaneous

      actions); whereas

      the two last

      of these, namely

      method and ma-

      terial, to-

      gether with form

      (the morpholo-

      gy of a con-

      tinuity)

      were equally

      the proper con-

      cern of the heart.

      Composition,

      then, I viewed, ten

      years ago, as

      an activity integrat-

      ing the oppo-

      sites, the ration-

      al and the ir-

      rational, bring-

      ing about, i-

      deally, a

      freely moving

      continui-

      ty within a

      strict division

      of parts, the sounds,

      their combina-

      tion and succes-

      sion being ei-

      ther logical-

      ly related

      or arbitrar-

      ily chosen.

      ¶The strict divi-

      sion of parts, the

      structure, was a

      function of the

      duration