Scholarly discussion of the music of John Cage.

[Rod Stasick <>]

Well, that was what I was wondering earlier,

but giving it some more thought, I think it

reminds me of eclipses.

For example, if you go to a list of past and future eclipse dates - 

let’s say solar eclipses in particular - and pick a date (your birthday),

it is possible to see a similar kind of patterning in small areas within 

the large pattern. What may change for each date may be where the 

similar patterns exist within the really big pattern that you’re investigating. 

I think that’s what is happening in this instance. I remember last year noticing

that my birthday fell on quite a few occurrences of eclipses while my wife’s fell 

on only one in 1901. You see Cage’s birthday show up rather often, but there are

none that show up in the first 70 years that are the anniversary of his death.

Various sounds and releases happen relatively often on Cage’s birthday 

near the beginning of the entire work (2020, 2030, 2034, 2037), 

but then nearly a quarter of a century goes by before it happens again

in 2061. I’ve only seen the info that ends ends 2071, so I don’t know how

the patterning continues after then.

I think, too, that you can come up with a mathematical method whereby

the only constants that you are looking for are that the start and end dates 

happen on his birthday and the “in-betweens” are truly driven by the mathematical 

proportions. Even tho the work pre-dates the time-bracket ideas, there was a

performance of it in Australia that divided up each of the eight sections into

60 segments where the event timings were left somewhat open, so there’s

that possibility as well. I’d like to think that there’s an academic paper out there.

Rod

*************

Now Playing:

‌Lawrence English:‌ Amanita Inaurata
‌

‌from:

‌For/Not for John Cage‌

‌Last.FM:

https://www.last.fm/user/rostasi2

Mixcloud:

https://www.mixcloud.com/rostasi/

GoodReads:

https://www.goodreads.com/rostasi