I wasn't aware that Cage said this, but I was very aware that he did this business of placing forms over natural forms or chance forms or found forms.

This has been a big help to me. It provides a rationale for a lot of stuff in algorithmic composition, where there are mathematical forms, natural forms, or found forms that we treat in various ways.

Cage not only framed, but he filtered, transposed, stretched, and selected. I don't know how much of this he did, for any given piece, but it's obvious if you look, for example, at the score for Atlas Eclipticalis.

Regards,
Mike

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Michael Mossey" 
To: 
Sent: Sunday, February 12, 2006 11:04 PM
Subject: Re: [Csnd] Algorithmic composition - the simplest model



> I guess what I was trying to suggest was that since an individuals
> perception so much decides the line between music and not, the
> extremities for a given individual may range from no audible sound to
> White noise. Common functional norms generally reduce the limits to
> include the kinds of attributes you describe, but if someone feels that
> silence is music, then it is, equally if someone believes that white
> noise is music, then it is.
>
> That's a fascinating point about the movements in 4'33" that I wasn't
> aware of.

My memory is vague, but I recall reading that Cage was interested in how
placing a form on something arbitrarily gave it structure. In other words,
if you were sitting out in nature listening to wind and animals moving,
and you decided that this experience would consist of three movements,
each 1 minute, then all sorts of interesting patterns would happen. He
said he was out in nature, doing this very thing, and he had a fantastic,
dramatic middle movement when a deer showed up. In the third movement,
peace returned.

Well, sure, anybody can think anything about music, but I'm still
interested in taking a survey of what individual people think the simplest
form of music is, that interests them. I'd be interested in hearing your
thoughts, (unless you already answered because you are saying silence is
music, for you).

Cheers,
Mike



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