The Logic Off Topic list

Thoughts from the mind of TazmnianDv@..., 09-07-2002:

>Cage had a piece that was complete silence for 4 minutes. Recently an English
>guy made a CD and made one track of silence for a 1 minute (as something of a
>joke and as separation from the main songs and the bonus material). The
>family of Cage are suing him for royalties for this 'composition' claiming it
>is a 'quotation' of Cage's piece.

Now this is extremely silly...  I once witnessed a performance of 
a.o. this Cage piece btw -- which, to be exact, is 4'33 of silence. 
Very interesting, as an audience is apparently just _not_ capable of 
shutting up for 4 and a half minutes if there's no music playing...

>  >Last remark: about being able to play a composition on guitar and
>>have the "idea" survive.  Take 90% of the "classical" compositions of
>>the last 50 years...  Immediate breakdown of your definition :-).
>>Even a simple piece for prepared piano can't be played on any other
>  >instrument and still have its idea survive, I think.
>
>The key term is MUSICAL IDEA.

Yes, I understand what you mean.  My counterclaim is just that some 
MUSICAL IDEAs :) simply don't survive when transferred to another 
context (instrument or whatever).

>I have two CD's of Prokoviev's Romeo and Juliette - one the full 
>symphonic version and one on piano only. I can fully recognize both 
>as the same musical idea - albeit the piano reduction is simpler.

Sure, as long as music consists of melodic and harmonic progressions, 
you can easily transfer it to guitar or piano.  But what aout e.g. 
Stockhausen's early electronic compositions ("tune a sine-oscillator 
to 400 Hz and keep it there for 5 seconds, now tune it to 410 Hz 
while at the same time introducing a square wave at 687 Hz...")?  Or 
how about there entire Musique Concrete movement -- which basically 
consisted of a collage of tape material, cut up, re-arranged and 
glued together?

-- 
Hendrik Jan Veenstra  <h@...>
Omega Art: http://www.ision.nl/users/h/index.html