Scholarly discussion of the music of John Cage.

[David Bellows <>]

> Define “algorithmic composer” or “algorithmic composition”.

Sure. Like wth Music of Changes, Cage had tables where he would look
up the results of his random number generator (I-Ching) and record
those results on the sheet music. So basically anything based on
chance (most of his works post-1950) where the resulting random
numbers  would be looked up in tables and those results used would be
"algorithmic" in the most general sense (ie, not requiring a
computer). Works of his that were based only on the imperfections on
the paper, for example, wouldn't count unless the note used on that
imperfection had some random elements (like duration or something).

So with any of these kinds of pieces, Cage could have generated
another set of random numbers and created a new version of that piece.
And this is what I'm asking, did he ever create more than one version
of one of these pieces? And the bonus question, did he ever consider
releasing the process to let other people create, for example, their
own Music of Changes?

On Tue, Mar 17, 2020 at 7:34 PM AHF <> wrote:
>
> David:
>
> Define “algorithmic composer” or “algorithmic composition”.
>
> (Since everything a computer can compute boils down to an algorithm, I need 
> to know if you want to know more than: a computer was involved).
>
> Andrew Culver
>
>
> > On Mar 17, 2020, at 9:12 PM, David Bellows <> wrote:
> >
> > 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
>