Cage's "Silence" and the su

[White, Rich]

Try this one:
Musical notation makes us think that there is something exact (almost 
digital) about the phenomenon it describes.  But if music is performed 
exactly as transcribed it's almost unlistenable.  the strings, winds, brass 
of the modern orchectra, none of them is pitched exactly - you have to make 
little adjustments to get the "right" note, which in many cases is not the 
440 A -- we may sharpen the notes slightly in playing an ascending series, 
flatten them in descending, etc.  The printed score has to be interpreted in 
performance.  The preformance is an analog.
As to silence.  Well, are there not varieties of silence as there are of 
nothingness - the moments of silence preceding an orchestral performance 
ought to differ from those at the endpoints of Lou Reed's Metal Machine 
Music, to make really crude point.  (also see DFW note 24 page 988-9 - the 
Joke), silence being the ground from which sound emerges, some silences 
being little more than toxic waste dumps, some deserts, some lush tropical 
soil.
 ----------
.*++From: owner-pynchon-l
.*++To: CO27447; SY19058
.*++Subject: Cage's "Silence" and the su
.*++Date: Wednesday, May 15, 1996 11:39AM
.*++
.*++<<File Attachment: HEADERS.TXT>>
.*++
.*++Date    5/15/96
.*++Subject Cage's "Silence" and the su
.*++From    WillL
.*++To      Pynchon List
.*++
.*++Cage's "Silence" and the subversive violin
.*++
.*++John M. correctly notes that Cage's 4'3*" isn't really silence at all, 
which
.*++is
.*++a good point -- the coughs and objections and who know what all else of 
the
.*++audience, listening to itself making up the "music" here.
.*++
.*++Perhaps I should have said that Cage's "silence" is not the sound in our 
LA
.*++theater AFTER the rocket hits but -- rather -- just after the film 
breaks and
.*++BEFORE the rocket hits.
.*++
.*++Nevertheless, having already confessed that I prefer Charlie Parker to 
John
.*++Cage, I will make the argument that (conveniently) goes my way.  When, 
at the
.*++end, our GR narrator contemplates this interval, he invites us to song. 
 While
.*++the sound of an audience listening to itself is a conceptually 
interesting
.*++thing, GR and Pynchon seem still to hold some belief in reach outward of 
song
.*++--
.*++a performance, a show, an act of creation to take us outside of being 
Their
.*++victim.  Charlie Parker, crying "Parker's Mood" is still, for me, the
.*++preterite
.*++song that accepts death and embraces openness, while Cage's manipulation 
of
.*++the
.*++audience for a kind of conceptual smartness seems more Force than
.*++Counterforce.
.*++
.*++Oh, yeah, and on the violin (and its various stringed sisters) as an
.*++instrument
.*++not tied to pure pitch:  good point.  On this one, I'm well aware that 
my
.*++metaphor is pretty flawed.  (Like, the ukelele DOES have frets, right?, 
and I
.*++don't think it's famous for having its notes bent away from "official"
.*++frequencies.)  Still, all them symphony orchestra-type instruments are
.*++typically
.*++deployed (at least in standard European classical music) with utter 
respect
.*++for
.*++diatonic or at least twelve-tone chromatic structure.  'F course, in the 
hands
.*++of others,the violin can let's its hair down in kazoo-like fashion -- 
check
.*++out
.*++Stuff Smith or Billy Bang or any number of Indian violin virtuosos, not 
to
.*++mention them Kronos Q-tet kids recording all that African music on 
Nonesuch
.*++records.
.*++
.*++Finally -- I expect to have my students' post in hand in the next day or 
so.
.*++Prepare yourselves for the excitement of 17/18 year-old minds 
confronting
.*++Oedipa
.*++ . . .
.*++
.*++-- Will Layman
.*++
.*++
.*++
.*++