From m Sent Mon, Aug 23rd 1999, 18:00
From m Sent Mon, Aug 23rd 1999, 18:00
>
> >I think Cage was probably the most important experimentalist ever. BUT his
> >aesthetic system ("all sound--intentional or not--is musical") isa pretty
> lame one, >imo. To be sure, all sounds can be considered artistically. But
> I think "music" has >to be reserved for something separate from the buzzing
> noise of the computer >terminal I sit in front of. If noise is music, then
> everything is music (everything is >intrinsically noisy), and music, as an
> art form, loses its virtue.
>
> Fair point, but a couple of things:
> Its very difficult to define what is intentional...
I think the issue here is that music is a label the listener applies,
not the composer/originator of the sounds. Every noise can have a
musical quality if the listener chooses to hear it that way, and it
makes very little difference what the "artist" intends in his
recording/composition. A piece of art/music is dead until it is brought
to life again by a listener, with his/her perception of the sounds. Some
will hear music and some will hear noise... it's all equally valid, each
person calls it how the see/hear it.
>
> > I think there's something fundamentally different in the way a Bruckner
> symphony >or an Autechre track affects my mind than the sound of my breathing
> (a sound I >hear every moment of my life) or other nonintentional noises that
> Cage would class >as music. The word "music" loses all its meaning in the
> Cagean aesthetic.
I don't believe it does. Again he is describing a way of perceiving
music, not just composing it. If you choose to perceive music in other
ways, using different criteria, then more power to you, because that is
the ability you and all of us have to shape our worlds with our
perceptions. We should all exercise our aesthetic senses, and also
remain open to new ideas and accepting of the fact that different people
see/hear things in different ways.
m
--
the foundry
realaudio samples via:
http://www.foundrysite.com/sounds1.html
out now...
eM <the motor sessions ep> (lmtd. 7"/lmtd. cdr)
the foundry <mote> (cd)
coming soon...
eM remix on <knots> issued on thousand/wmo [out 8/10/99]
http://wiremailorder.com/thousand/knots.htm