"Contemporary" music

CromaDiBrera wrote:

it's my job, as some may know: if I don't do it now...!

Legendary! I understand CromaDiBrera's little game now. Good to see you again!

Carlos wrote:

Legendary! I understand CromaDiBrera's little game now. Good to see you again!

Thank you Carlos; it is always a pleasure

Have you realized that you have been listening to Cage's 4.33 your whole life?

Or, if you prefer, my Variations on 4.33, in 5/4. Or both together.

Whether you like it or not.

During the listening (...) I was reflecting on a news report from 1989: in Naples, a street vendor put fragments of the Berlin Wall up for sale, and the pieces sold like hotcakes.

A satisfied buyer carrying his piece of rubble home was interviewed by the news program: "But do you truly believe it is an authentic piece?" "Of course not!".

I wouldn't know how to explain the exact mental process to you, but I find this episode emblematic of our times, also in relation to the notion of "art".

I am addressing, among others, Thallo, whose arguments I have always found interesting and based on solid preparation (also as a musicologist):

if you came to my house and, at the moment I invited you to sit down, I said to you "No, not on that chair, that is my work of art entitled My Home Chair",

you yourself, even if you had devoured all the books on art history, would not be able to distinguish the common object from the object of art.

This is to say that today a part of works of art finds its essence exclusively in the perception of those who enjoy them, outside of the form of art itself.

One could speak of meta-art...

To take the concept to its extreme consequences, I could have said that it was the score for the piece "The silence of the chairs".

To be performed by placing a chair on the stage and observing it in silence for as long as one enjoys it. :-)

DrJellyfish wrote:

Have you realized that you have been listening to Cage's 4.33 for your entire life?

Or, if you prefer, my Variations on 4.33, in 5/4. Or both together.

Whether you like it or not.

Honestly, I hadn't thought about it, so your question in itself has significant value, namely that of making one reflect on something I hadn't processed; also because it's true... there's not much to be done. The only objection one could make is that, since 4'33"" is a score that must be performed indoors and under certain conditions, it is not certain that everyone has been in those conditions at least once (the railway station waiting room, for example, cannot be considered a place in which to perform 4'33""... or can it? An urtext with explanatory notes is urgently required to establish crucial details for the understanding of the work). Anyway, enough chatter, an extremely interesting parallelism came to mind ("extremely interesting" I write only because when you think instead that it is nonsense, at least for a moment, you will be seized by doubt... "but how, he wrote 'extremely interesting'... naaa, nonsense!"). I was thinking of the beginning of Mahler's First Symphony, where the author writes wie ein naturlaut, like a "natural sound," and places this long, high, thread-like tone that at a certain point becomes impalpable: it is there but one no longer perceives it as a "true" sound, I don't know if I am managing to explain myself. Going backwards from there, many examples are found in musical literature of attempts to reproduce or evoke nature, which has always been the greatest source of inspiration for composers. It is a possible reading, but if we want to take the Doctor's proposal at face value, 4'33"" acquires the connotations of an assertion: "nature is here, just listen to it...". All this, provided that the critical edition, to be published soon, confirms the hypothesis that the score can also be performed on the white cliffs of Dover or perched gently on a hill in the Tuscan countryside.

From what I have read, Cage's intention was to demonstrate that absolute silence is a utopia; I do not know if he then considered the possibility of performance in places other than a concert hall. Another reading of the piece would be the observation that when listening to 4'33", we perceive all those sounds that we normally neglect but which probably unconsciously influence the perception of music. Naturally, my post was a bit provocative: listening to 4'33" presupposes a will on the part of the listener. However, I like the idea that Cage at least intuited the concept I just expressed and brought the abstraction of art to its extreme consequences: a music devoid of "music", in fact, which is only sensed if the listener decides to do so.

Referring back to the initial post and the various (even somewhat repetitive) ones on contemporary music, the point is not whether contemporary art is art, whether it is beautiful or ugly and so on, but rather how it relates to the utopian definition of the concept of "art"; I believe this is why no conclusion can be reached. In other historical periods, art had a strong "craft" component: you called Giotto because effectively no one else was able to paint in exactly the same way. Now, with technology, anyone can reproduce anything; consequently, art has reached such a level of conceptuality that the art object goes beyond the art itself.

The same work "The silence of the chairs" :-) could be exhibited in a pavilion on sculpture, on music, on multimedia or, much more likely, in my 2x3 m kitchen. It is only the viewer's filter that determines which form of art (or if it is art); the object itself is always the same.

I must admit that this fact causes me no small amount of perplexity.

Instead, my personal criticism of some contemporary music lies in the fact that sometimes it relies on effectism or the conception that originality is equivalent to creativity, or even on pure intellectual pleasure.

I have seen composers who would never have been able to tell if their piece with quarter tones or with overlaps of 13 over 5 at a metronome marking of 200 had been performed correctly...

DrJellyfish wrote:

The same work "The silence of the chairs" :-) could be exhibited in a pavilion on sculpture, music, multimedia or, much more likely, in my 2X3 mt kitchen. It is only the viewer's filter that determines which form of art (or if it is art), the object itself is always the same.

I must admit that this fact creates quite a few perplexities for me.

On the other hand, if you put Pietro Manzoni's Artist's Shit in a public toilet, it becomes poop once again, nothing more and nothing less, and nobody says "bah". The same happens with modern art and provocative works of art, because if you put Michelangelo's David in a public toilet, something wrong is noticed... besides, even Artist's Shit carried a very clear message, namely this: any piece of junk placed in an exhibition hall can become/be considered a work of art. Unfortunately, it doesn't just happen in that sense, nor only with contemporary art, if you think about it. Remember the business with Joshua Bell playing in the New York subway? Very few noticed him because they recognized him, but of those who did not recognize him, no one noticed the violinist's talent, even though they might have heard him the night before at Carnegie Hall. But at Carnegie Hall "he could only be good," while in the subway "he could only be a beggar." The place makes the work of art. Does the place make the work of art?"

Sting did it in London too, same result (!). However, in the case of Joshua Bell I have some doubts: you, hearing someone playing like that, wouldn't you have stopped?

DrJellyfish wrote:

Sting did it too in London, same result (!). However, in the case of Joshua Bell, I have some doubts: wouldn't you have stopped if you heard someone playing like that?

I probably would have, but the discussion must be extended to the "rest of the world": people of all different backgrounds go to hear concerts, and it makes one think that the same people who were applauding him the night before ignored him in the subway (where by "the same" I mean the same type of people, obviously...).

I have been away for a while.

I'm back :-)

For now, I am responding to the matter about Cage and my chair at home. If I missed other questions, please ask them again.

4'33"" is conceptual art. Conceptual art is based on the idea that art is not a thing but a mode. As such, it does not depend on the object but on the intention. If you look at a plate of pasta and want to find the "beauty" in it, then you will find it, and in that moment your gaze is the same as if you were facing a painting by Goya.

Making conceptual art is not easy... every artist has used different methods and techniques. Carlos's idea that 4'33"" is strongly linked to the concert hall is completely justified. Even more so, without the piano, without the pianist, without the full hall, the initial applause and the final applause, 4'33"" does not exist. I cannot say I am practicing Zen meditation when I sleep; meditation is a moment of nothingness that is sought and intended.

However, this does not mean that only a concert hall or a museum can contain conceptual art. If you manage to be credible in telling me that your chair is a work of art, I could absolutely go along with it. In fact, with me, you would find the perfect sucker ahahah obviously if you firmly believed in the idea of conceptual art (as many have done), then you would develop a stronger structure, you would contain the chair within narratives, values, and a setting, because conceptual art must also have appeal to those who are not suckers.

I agree with you. Among other things, I find that 4'33'' has brilliant implications. However, I think it is quite slippery ground; the same example you made about the plate of pasta is significant: you can find the "beauty" in anything, but does this make anything an art object? Certainly, there are evaluation parameters even for conceptual art, but they are very fluid.

Today (not true, always) I have become obsessed with sensuality.

How would you apply this concept to conceptual art? I am asking in a declaratively provocative way: do you consider it music?

Frank wrote:

Today (not true, always) I have become obsessed with sensuality.

How would you apply this concept to conceptual art? I am asking in a declarably provocative way: do you consider it music?

I didn't understand.

CromaDiBrera wrote:

I didn't understand.

... regarding sensuality, I think it refers to this writing of his that I have just read

http://www.pianoconcerto.it/forum/index.php?/topic/889-3-lezione-lorganizzazione-tonale-ionica-e-lorganizzazione-tonale-lydia-2-parte/page__fromsearch__1

I don't know why, but it seems like an interesting way to pose the question

La Monte Young, before "becoming" a minimalist, was a conceptual artist. With different results and intentions... he wrote some pieces called "Compositions 1960". Composition 1960 #10 consists of an instruction, "Draw a straight line and follow it". In La Monte Young's intentions, it should be a sort of yoga exercise; obviously, the performer's freedom is maximal. It seems that David Tudor, Cage's pianist (for context), interpreted the piece by dipping his hands in paint and tracing a strip on the floor with his hands...

To put charm and sensuality into a conceptual work, especially if musical, it takes very little :-) it takes performance

In short, one needs to be high-performing! From which I deduce that, at the very least, I should start getting some exercise...!

Five misconceptions to debunk about contemporary music

http://www.ilcorrier...-contemporanea/