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Re: [microsound] re: the Cage fire...



On 11/07/03 22:29, ndk said in living color:

> Regarding Cage and records, am I missing something? His latter body of
> compositions usually relied heavily on indeterminacy.  Anyone could make
> a pretty strong point that manufactured recordings of works relying on
> indeterminacy pretty much negate that concept as a listening experience
> barring some gimmick.

I beg to differ a bit on this topic.

For one thing, indeterminacy can intervene at different levels. Several
works used indeterminacy solely as a compositional tool/model/whatever; IOW,
once the piece was composed using aleatoric principles, it was fixed. The
piece thus acquires the same status as a piece composed through any other
means.

As for works involving indeterminacy *as part of the performance*, I still
think that a case can be made for the production of records. In such a
situation, the recording would indeed offer only a more or less substantial
portion of the work's potentialities, depending on the potency that is given
by the composer to the indeterminate parameters -- but if one is aware of
that limitation, I think the object can be relevant and art will be able to
go ahead and do its thing.

g.

-- 
Guillaume Grenier - grenier.g@xxxxxxxxxxxx

in space there is no north  in space there is no south
in space there is no east   in space there is no west

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