MUS 337

Instructor:

Dr. Frank T. Restesan

 Key Terms

Electronic music

Chance (Aleatoric) Music = some

element of the composition is left to
chance, or some primary element of a
compositions realization is left to the
determination of its performer.
Late Twentieth Century
1900 1950 2000
 John Cage (1912-1992)
Composer, philosopher, poet, music
theorist, writer - instrumental in the
development of modern dance
Cages style is a synthesis of his two
mentors Schoenberg and Cowell:
structural organization of music that
relates the whole to the parts
Tala = Indian concept of organizing
music by duration
 Cont. Cage (2)
Cages works are highly organized using
mathematic and architectural relations:
Ex. First Construction in Metal (1939)
o 16 units (blocks) of 16 measures each - follow
the 4+3+2+3+4 structure
o Square-Root Form : number of measures in
each unit (16) is the square-root of the total
number of measures in the work (256)
Music organized in terms of units of time
(length) rather than pitch and rhythm
 Cont. Cage (3)
Cage was interested more in Color not in Pitch:
1940s - Prepared Piano
Sonatas & Interludes (1946-48) 16 brief
sonatas in free, through-composed forms for
prepared piano (sounds resemble gongs,
drums, wood block, etc.)
1950s lectures & writings that emphasized
music that focused listeners attention to the
present moment opposed to traditional,
written down/preserved music
 Cont. Cage (3.1)
Examples of Prepared Piano Technique
Sonata V: http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=VYsx5Di3bso&p=3CA468FE7C4CAB81&index
=6&playnext=2

Piano Concerto: http://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=4SmXNDYlNJM&feature=related
 Cont. Cage (4)
Cages Later Music Aesthetics: music should
not necessarily convey images, express
emotions or even contain recognizable
material developed in a coherent structure
Cage became interested in Zen Buddhism
related music to a sound-experience and
not to a vehicle for composers intentions
Cages later works did not convey his
intentions but simply were tried to engage
listeners to pure conscious listening
 Cont. Cage:
Compositional Strategies (5)
a. Chance
b. Indeterminacy (elements of music or
performance are not precisely specified
pitch, rhythm, etc)
c. Blurring the boundaries between music as
art and life ( 433, 1952)
Most controversial chance work - the piece
actually consists of the naturally occurring
sounds from the environment that can be
heard during the performance
 Cont. Cage Listening:
Book I from Music of Changes
(6)
Genre: Chance music for piano (1952)
Form: Square-root form & math ratios
Compositional technique: chance operations
from an archaic Chinese oracle consulting
method based on tossing of coins
Sounds are mostly pre-determined but
arranged in a particular position by chance
only during the process of creation. Performer
plays completely determined music)
 Morton Feldman (1926-1987)
American composer friends with Cage in New
York
Associated with the most radical New York
abstract painters & musicians of the 50s-60s
Philosophy: trust instinct, reject compositional
systems & compose according to flat art (total
abstract images)
Worked with both traditional and chance
techniques
Style: sparse, quiet, atonal & pointillistic
 Cont. Feldman: Listening

Projection IV (1951)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pk74GH-
_HzM&feature=related
 Earle Brown (1926-2002)
Member of Cages group (New York Group)
Trained in engineering and mathematics
Establishing his own formal and notational
systems (predated Cages music)
1953 -Open-Form technique of composition
Used free indeterminacy (December 1952)
o First use of a 'radical' (entirely graphic) score
(unusually notated music)
 Cont. Brown (2)
o Consists purely of horizontal and vertical lines
varying in width
o The role of the performer is to interpret the
score visually and translate the graphical
information to music
Listening: E. Brown
String Quartet (1965)
http://nku.naxosmusiclibrary.com/catalogue/item.
asp?cid=CDX-5143
Cont. Brown: Listening (3)
1. Hodograph I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-
KMbV5Ph3jY&feature=related

2. December 1952
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=DE3O490MQa4&feature=related