Scholarly discussion of the music of John Cage.

[Eric Theise <>]

Hi Rob,

FWIW, in the texts I have:

the only occurrence of the word "butting" appears on page 172 of Empty Words

    "mayridinghim by the Silent hour butting charging bracing"

and the only occurrence of the word "colliding" is on page 26 of M

a utility aMong
         swAllows
    is theiR
       musiC.
         thEy produce it mid-air
to avoid coLliding.

"Syntactical" never appears alongside "phrases".

Eric

On Mon, Feb 13, 2017 at 11:08 AM, Rob Haskins <> wrote:

Thanks, Louis. 

After going carefully through I–VI twice, I've determined the quote isn’t there. I think either my author is misremembering when (and where) Cage said it, or that it was said during the time of the Harvard lectures but not included in the published book. The closest thing is: "I think that in these lectures[,] more than in any other that i've done[,] that syntax has met with a challenge of some kind[.] It appears from these lectures this is a way of writing which comes from ideas but is not about them but somehow brings them[,] new ideas or other ideas[,] into existence" (337–38). Of course, p. 2 contains the classic phrase "to explore a way of writing which though coming from ideas is not about them, or is not about ideas but produces them.” 

Since the words "colliding" and "butting up against" are important for the point the author's trying to make in the rest of his paragraph, some rewriting will have to be done, and I'm not sure if the "brushing information with information" is the way he will want to go. We'll see . . .

Thanks again!

On Mon, Feb 13, 2017 at 2:03 PM, Louis Coppersmith <> wrote:

I can't seem to find your quote, but Cage did describe his non-syntactical writings with phrase borrowed from Marshall McLuhan, "brushing information against information."   Check out MUSICAGE around page 51.  (maybe "brushing"="butting"?)

There are also some similar musings along the bottom of pp. 14-18 of I-VI, but it's not the exact quote you're after.  Let me know if you find it!

Louis

On Mon, Feb 13, 2017 at 8:55 AM, Rob Haskins <> wrote:

Hi everyone, I'm trying to track down a quote, possibly from I–VI. (I’ve checked once and can’t find it; I’m about to check again.)

“I used these lectures as a way of seeking out ideas—by the fact these syntactical phrases are colliding with each other, butting up against each other they’re giving birth to new ideas.”

Thank you in advance for any help you can offer.

Best,

Rob

--

Rob Haskins, D.M.A., Ph.D.
Professor of Music

College of Liberal Arts
University of New Hampshire
M-105, Paul Creative Arts Center
30 Academic Way
Durham, NH 03824
603-862-3987 (office)
603-862-3155 (fax)
<http://unh.edu/music/>
<http://robhaskins.net>

--

Rob Haskins, D.M.A., Ph.D.
Professor of Music

College of Liberal Arts
University of New Hampshire
M-105, Paul Creative Arts Center
30 Academic Way
Durham, NH 03824
603-862-3987 (office)
603-862-3155 (fax)
<http://unh.edu/music/>
<http://robhaskins.net>