Scholarly discussion of the music of John Cage.

[David Bellows <>]

Hello everyone,

I have some questions based on thinking about Cage as an algorithmic
composer. I don't mean that in any stylistic sense but only in the
literal sense where he would create a system, insert chance derived
numbers, and a piece of music would be the result. I get that for the
most part he did this by hand but I think pieces like "Music of
Changes" would still qualify as algorithmic anyway. And of course
later in his career he did use computers to help out with at least
some aspects of the compositional process.

Given the above, my question is, did he ever use the same algorithmic
system more than once to generate other versions of a piece for
publication? And which ones?

BONUS Question:

I know there are some people on this list who knew Cage so maybe
there's a chance this topic came up. Did Cage ever consider publishing
the process for any of these algorithmic pieces instead of, or in
addition to, the published version? In other words, not just publishing
the sheet music but publishing the exact process he used so that other
people could generate their own versions. If he did ever discuss this
what was the result?

I know that we can, with some success, perhaps recreate some of his
processes, but from what I've seen there's usually quite a bit of
speculation involved.

Any insights into this are appreciated.

Sincerely,
Dave Bellows
www.platonicmusicengine.com