Scholarly discussion of the music of John Cage.

[Stefano Pocci <>]

On 06/19/2011 05:30 PM, Rob Haskins wrote:

I'm also coming late to this discussion, and I haven't read Perloff's article thoroughly myself--but one remark Stefano makes struck a chord with me and I thought I'd address it  briefly. I might have more to say about Perloff's article later. 

Stefano writes, 

What's interesting about that piece is its theme, the "constructed anarchy" issue. I might sound a bit naive on this but one of the things that keeps me hooked on Cage's works and writings is the apparent paradox of the rules he followed to practice anarchy.

I studied Cage's interest in anarchism in my dissertation, and haven't yet written up the results in a proper article, but I hope to do this. Briefly, anarchism for Cage does not, I think, mean a state of total chaos, but rather a political affiliation in which the individuals involved mutually work out how they will live together in an action of continual negotiation and renegotiation. There  is, then, no paradox between rules rigorously followed and a resulting constructed anarchism. What Cage aimed to do in his music was to allow all the instruments and voices (the sounds) the opportunity to seem equally important, and (for the audience) the possibility that all those various sounds could be heard in a multiplicity of ways. Cage's music is indeed a model of anarchistic communities, and the act of listening to them a kind of participation within those communities. (Joan Retallack makes this point brilliantly in, I think, "Poethics of a Complex Realism.")

To this I would add that Cage's discipline and rigor relate not so much to his anarchistic beliefs as they do to his peculiar appropriation of Zen principles into his work. I believe it's very difficult (and probably unproductive) to try completely to disentangle the various strands that make up his aesthetic practice but rather, to maintain a more synthetic approach when thinking critically about his ideas. (As indeed Cage himself did in his vast appropriations of disparate thinkers.)

All best,

Rob

Thanks for your very informative reply Rob. I haven't thought of anarchy the way you put it (as you say Cage actually put it:-). If so, then there's no need to speak of a "paradox" since my use of that word descends from the usual notion of anarchy that is "total chaos", more or less. Cage implied the use of smartness for his anarchic world, something that man wasn't possessing at all, like he used to say.

Your words also reminded me of the creativeness left to the audience which is a real peer of the executor (as well as of the composer) in his music, if we could only open our ears! That is the anarchy is was aiming to I suspect. Of course his rigidness could be related to his embrace of the Zen principles but I cannot go much further than agreeing with you as I haven't vetted this aspect too deeply yet.

One more thing though. While reading Julia Robinson's extended essay in "The Anarchy of Silence" catalog, a very crucial point is made. She calls it "symbolic investiture" which, if I got it right, consists in the way Cage absorbed and made his own use of other thinkers' opinions and theories. Cage might be the very first one to creatively appropriate of someone else's work, not just a mere quoting process.

That said, it would be nice to read your dissertation on Cage's anarchy whenever you write it.

-- 

Stefano

"When we separate music from
 life what we get is art
 (a compendium of masterpieces)" - John Cage