Scholarly discussion of the music of John Cage.

[One Man John Cage Tribute Band <>]

Hi
I've been puzzling over those notations recently in Imaginary Langscape 4. 
Quickly, it occurs to me that the passage you describe can be renotated as:
sixteenth-note rest, triplet eighth-note rest, triplet quarter-note, 
quarter-note, four-dotted half-note
...which makes, for me at least, more sense. Not quite sure what you mean by 
a non-real rhythm though. Could you expand on this?

As far as the maintenance of Cage's scores by Peters Edition, it's quite 
clear that they just do not have the funds, man-power or time to do very much 
to the scores but I'm sure that if your wrote an explanatory text that could 
be inserted into the score, they would be very grateful. They've always been 
very very helpful whenever I've contacted them with Cage-related (or 
Ferneyhough-related) questions. 
John

Sent from my iPhone

On 26 Aug 2011, at 15:24, Tim Ovens 
<>
 wrote:

> Hi Philip, hi all
> 
> thanks for the prompt reply. Strange, the bars in my (newly bought) Music 
> of Changes are 7.8 length. I found this information: "[The] available 
> Peters edition unwisely reduces Cage’s original to 85% (presumably the 
> original sheets were 12 1/2 x 9 1/2 in.). Instead of 10cm 4/4 measures, the 
> two-measure systems actually span 17cm." 
> (http://www.lafolia.com/archive/covell/covell200604cage1951.html)
> 
> For the Haiku the score makes sense - only that it is terrible to read. It 
> is beautyful but more people could and would play them if there would be a 
> more legible score. What I do not understand are the remarks. They are 
> copied from the "Music of Changes", and just added here, right?  The 
> rhythmic structure 3 - 5 - 6 3/4 - ... you find in the "Changes", but not 
> in the Haiku I suppose. And the remark about the duration in space (2.1/2 
> cm is a quarter note) also makes no sense here, shoul be 1/2 Inch = quarter 
> note. I think Peters should add an explaining forward. It is nice to solve 
> riddles, but sometimes I would like to spend more time on playing and less 
> on solving riddles.
> 
> Do you, or does anyone know why the first four Haiku have the 2.5 - 3.5 - 
> 2.5 structure (evoking the Haiku) but the succeeding only are divided to 
> two parts (2.5 - 6)?
> 
> May I ask for any opinions on the realisation of the fractions, Cage writes 
> over or under many notes or rests, for example in the first Haiku he writes 
> under the first eigth-note rest 1/3. I suppose this means that it is as 
> long as a triplet-eigth-note rest. After this comes a "normal" 
> sixteenth-note rest, followed by quarter note c tied to another quarter 
> note c. Over this he writes 2/3, so this tied c is as long as two 
> triplet-note eigths. And then again tied another c, which is a four dotted 
> half-note. Could one say that the lenght of this tied notes (quarter+two 
> triplet eight-notes+four dotted half-note) is a sort of non-real rhythm? On 
> one hand I have to hold the first quarter note much longer than one quarter 
> note (according to the space notation). On the other hand the rhythm is 
> inaudible because of the tiing of the notes.
> 
> So we can concentrate on counting as attentive as possible or we just 
> follow the spatial notation - also as attentive as possible. Two ways which 
> should be correct, one terrible difficult, the other surprisingly simple. 
> Such is life?
> 
> Tim
> 
> Am 26.08.11 14:10, schrieb Philip Thomas:
>> Hi Tim
>> 
>> My copy of Seven Haiku, from which I play, marks a unit of 1/2 inch to be 
>> equal to MM 60. This is borne out, so that bars are of lengths 2.5 inches, 
>> 3.5 inches and 2.5 inches (i.e. units of 5, 7, 5, to match haiku). As you 
>> say, however, it does make reading the score very difficult and parts are 
>> indecipherable.
>> 
>> However my copy of Music of Changes does not match Cage's measurements. 
>> Cage writes that quarter note = 2.5 cm and notates the score in bars of 4 
>> units. However each of my bars is 8.6 cm length, again making the notation 
>> rather small and difficult to read in the most dense passages.
>> 
>> Thus my understanding is that 7 haiku is (frustratingly) correct but Music 
>> of Changes is a reduction in print size.
>> Best wishes
>> Philip
>> 
>> 
>> _____________________
>> 
>> www.philip-thomas.co.uk
>> Dr. Philip Thomas
>> Senior Lecturer, Music Department
>> University of Huddersfield
>> Queensgate, Huddersfield HD1 3DH
>> Tel: 01484 471336
>> www.hud.ac.uk/mhm/mmt
>> 
>> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Tim Ovens 
>> [mailto:]
>> Sent: 26 August 2011 12:59
>> To: 
>> 
>> Subject: [silence] Score Size (7 Haiku, Music of Changes)
>> 
>> 
>> Hi all,
>> 
>> for long time I have been out of this list. Can anyone tell me how the 
>> search
>> in the archive is working now? For example I could not find any entry for 
>> the
>> words Haiku or Changes, but I am sure there are any.
>> 
>> Are there any old editions with Seven Haiku or Music of Changes? I did 
>> contact
>> Gene Caprioglio from Peters in New York, but he wrote:
>> "8.5 by 11 inches IS the size intended by Cage.   Is your copy 8.5x11?  The
>> height of the staff should be a tiny bit over 1/8 inch.  If it is, than 
>> carry
>> on, you have the correct music.   If there are larger copies extant, they 
>> are
>> wrong.   They should be ignored.   They were not produced by C.F. Peters
>> Corporation."
>> 
>> But in this size Cages remarks on the space and time make no sense. Besides
>> this Haiku score is in parts not legible (e.g. no. 5), because the 
>> handwriting
>> is smeared over by the diminuishing. How do you handle with this?
>> 
>> Best,
>> Tim
>> 
>> 
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