From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!spool.mu.edu!olivea!uunet!stanford.edu!unix!vance Tue May 12 15:48:46 EDT 1992
Article 5379 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Xref: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca rec.music.classical:10902 comp.ai.philosophy:5379
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!spool.mu.edu!olivea!uunet!stanford.edu!unix!vance
>From: vance@speech.sri.com (Vance Maverick)
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical,comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Intelligence, awareness, and esthetics
Message-ID: <VANCE.92May3123314@friend.speech.sri.com>
Date: 3 May 92 19:33:14 GMT
Article-I.D.: friend.VANCE.92May3123314
References: <1992Apr21.212425.9210@saifr00.cfsat.honeywell.com>
	<1992Apr22.122656.1303@nuscc.nus.sg>
	<1992Apr22.153550.19640@javelin.sim.es.com>
	<1992Apr23.121553.6713@nuscc.nus.sg> <3671@novavax.UUCP>
Sender: news@unix.SRI.COM
Followup-To: rec.music.classical
Organization: Speech recognition group, SRI
Lines: 38
In-reply-to: gowj@novavax.UUCP's message of 3 May 92 03:47:55 GMT


In article <3671@novavax.UUCP> gowj@novavax.UUCP (James Gow) writes:

   Is this the cage of electronic music?

John Cage indeed did electronic music, including what is claimed as
the first tape piece done outside Europe.  Without my references, I
can't remember whether it was the _Fontana Mix_ or the _Williams Mix_.
Through the 60's he was using analog electronics in performance.  But
he's not thought of primarily as an electronic musician, any more
than, say, Miles Davis, who got pretty electronic by 1970.

   I say electronic but in the beginning it was just wierd sounds.

Was that a typo for "weird" or for "wired"?  And what beginning are
you referring to?  His percussion pieces of the 30's?

   I lost interest when all the computer stuff came out.
   He was lost in a generation of microchips.

You mean you lost interest in Cage?  Did you lose interest in
Beethoven too?  Those feeble unamplified acoustic instruments!

More seriously, I think computer-music heads grossly underestimate the
richness and interest of much of the analog electronic work done in
the mod-composer community.  Not Cage so much, though he was certainly
interesting, but (look out, Steve, Dave Lampson, etc.) Stockhausen,
Xenakis, and a few others.  The best of this music shows, to my ear, a
variety of sound and sensitivity of timing not matched yet by anything
from the computer era -- despite the nightmarish conditions under
which it was produced.  The _Gesang der Juenglinge_ was 6 months of
14-hour days in the studio....

Back to Cage: the interest of his work never lay in the up-to-dateness
of the technology, so the outdating of analog electronics can hardly
affect it.

	Vance (wondering why he's become the resident Cage advocate)


