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Subject: Scholarly discussion of the music of John Cage.

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[silence] Fwd: Re: Re: Re: Re: Mesostic generator


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  • From: Joseph Zitt <>
  • To: Silence <>
  • Subject: [silence] Fwd: Re: Re: Re: Re: Mesostic generator
  • Date: Sat, 13 Apr 2013 14:48:46 -0400

This brings up an interesting meta-question of how far a form can be stretched before what is produced no longer fits the name. I would think that writing a mesostic would be aking to writing a sonnet or a fugue, in that there is the strictest form, then some leeway, then a grey area, then things that are clearly not of that form. There's nothing wrong with creating new forms, of course. As I understand it, when what Cage intended as an acrostic wasn't really one, it got the new label of mesostic. Similarly, if something strays enough from being a mesostic not to clearly be one, there's no shame in defining what was done as a new form.

I did a book of scores, many of which were improvisation structures, some years back. My suggestion there was that people would be free to tweak the forms as needed, and if they tweaked them so far that the result could no longer be recognized as the piece then they had a new piece, though I would be good if they would note that it had developed from the original piece.

But the arguments over where the borderlines between a form and something else are are often, effectively, religious, with Strict Defenders of The Faith at one end being viewed as Nazis by the other. It's an old story, but it seems to happen everywhere.




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