Caged

Reading John Cage's articles wasn't informative, enjoyable, or even irritating, it was maddening!

In his first article he says that music is "an ideal situation, not a real one." Music is the real though, not the ideal. The printed may be the ideal, but the real situation is what the performers play. The real situation is what composers are writing for and understand. His assumption here on p. 32 is totally backwards, but that isn't the end of it. He goes on to dictate that his subject here warrants a totally irrelevant story, which no writing ever does.

By the end of the article, Cage leaves the reader with the story about the three men going to see the one on the hill, but never grants the reader his nugget of wisdom that was gained through the study of this situation. He leaves the reader to draw his or her own conclusion as to it's relevance, probably because he has none to impart. This article is simply his ramblings.

The form itself of these two articles is a frustrating thing to get past. Of course by intention, Cage changes the form of the writing in order to play with the reader's expectation of what it should be, of what any writing should be. The question becomes, why stop at format? He could spell words wrong, insert characters, change the damn language, but no, he just plays with the format. Cage inserts irrelevant and unnecessary space to prove what point?

The second article was worse. Not only does the form break the mold, his content runs on without relevance or substance. He states in the first 'paragraph' that an idea that is pushed it falls down easily, which is not true at all. Ideas on their own stand to reason most of the time, and people defend them themselves. Most do not like to admit when they are wrong and go to extremes to prove a point that they do not always believe in. Entering into a discussion does not make a thought or idea valid either, Cage tells us this, but discussion only implies like-mindedness, a want to communicate, or conversation for the sake of connection. Discussion does not necessarily validate a thought.

On the next page Cage says 'we posses nothing,' but never defines what he means. He never alludes or even mentions consciousness, but how can he not? Any process of thought is something we posses, not to mention the ideals that come from each individual's stream of consciousness. Cage's rant about nothing rambles without content because he states no fact, although on page 111 he states that his 'poetry' is often called 'content.'

Near the end of the same page, Cage states 'That music is simple to make comes from one's willingness to accept the limitations of structure.' This statement falls flat on its face. Music, the production of sound, exists without form, because sound is truly intangible, it exists with and without physicality, and has no structure other than that which each individual may or may not choose to give it. For example, when a player is warming up, he or she may or may not make use of time, proper pitch, correct technique, even proper posture! When working on an etude, players sometimes change notes, play things out of time, and work on music in a fashion other than this constraining form that holds Cage down. Music has only that structure which we choose to apply, not the other way around.

On p. 112, Cage states that 'structure without life is dead. But life without structure is unseen.' on the next page that 'structure has no point.' If we connect the dots here, then Cage says that: Life without structure is pointless. Yet, Cage expresses his want to change, dismantle, bend, and break structure in his music, and champions for the reordering of form itself. Not to mention the anomoly that there is no point in breaking structure if structure is pointless. No allusion here either. And of course, were Cage to read this he would have nothing to say in correlation. His argument would be for non-argument, that his lecture was about nothing and so my connection and reaction to his lecture is also nothing.

The best part is on page 119. Cage says that 'it is not irritating to be where one is. It is only irritating to think one would like to be somewhere else.' Yes Cage, in a text without structure (which is pointless) why listen? Without any argument from you as to why what you say matters in the least, anything you have to say is about as sensible as eating a mattress.