Scholarly discussion of the music of John Cage.

[john david fullemann <>]

Stefano
I think they were just numbers.
When I worked with him, his interest was to first determine how
many parameters we had, then how many choices he had for a given
parameter, and then let the I Ching chose one.
If there were 5 alternatives for a parameter, he divided 64 into
roughly 5 segments so the answer fell into one of 5 bins.
For a while, he used any free time at airports, etc, tossing pennies
and writing the resultant hexagrams.
While working at IIRCAM, he got someone to print out reams of "tossings".
Yours,
John Fullemann


Den 2017-01-28 kl. 18:43, skrev Stefano Pocci:
> Hi all,
> I always wondered what chance operations were for Cage exactly,
> especially in regards of his usage of the I-Ching.
> Sometimes he used it as a random number generator, which initially
> probably meant tossing the coins to obtain an hexagram, that is, a
> number between 1 and 64.
> Later, he used a computer generated outcome to determine such random
> number, which made his job faster.
> However, this implies that his questions were supposed to receive a
> numerical answer, a number, limiting the range of possible questions. Is
> that so?
> And finally, has Cage ever interpreted the I-Ching hexagram meaning for
> his works? Not just numerically I mean. If so, it would be really
> interesting to see what kind of questions he posed.
>
> Thanks in advance for your help,
> Stefano