For the Birds

by John Cage, Daniel Charles

The New Grove Dictionary of Music has said of John Cage that he "had a greater impact on world music than any other American composer in the twentieth century," and his musical thinking forms a whole with his writing. For the Birds is a book, a dialogue and an event all at once. The initial conversations were recorded in France between 1968 and 1978 and were then reconstructed, reedited and commented upon by Cage. The final text, with footnotes and asides added over the years, is prefaced by a typographical celebration of his ideas compiled by Cage himself.

This ebullient collection of questions and answers covers a wide variety of topics. Cage's great wit and intelligence are allowed to range across such subjects as his own music and texts, mushrooms, chess, James Joyce, Mao, Thoreau, Satie, electronic music, the prepared piano, Zen, the environment, technology, politics and economics.

John Cage was born in Los Angeles in 1912. He studied music with Adolf Weiss, Henry Cowell and Arnold Schoenberg, and he has shared ideas with Marcel Duchamp, Joan Miro and Max Ernst, as well as such prophets as Marshall McLuhan and Buckminster Fuller. He was music director of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company for decades and held a number of academic posts. Cage was a composer, poet, graphic artist, teacher and critic. He died in New York in 1992.

"He is not a composer, he's an inventor -- of genius."--Arnold Schoenberg

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, Art, Philosophy

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1981

About the author

John Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, philosopher, poet, music theorist, artist, printmaker, and amateur mycologist and mushroom collector. A pioneer of chance music, electronic music and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde. Critics have lauded him as one of the most influential American composers of the 20th century. He was also instrumental in the development of modern dance, mostly through his association with choreographer Merce Cunningham, who was also Cage's romantic partner for most of their lives.

Cage is perhaps best known for his 1952 composition 4′33″, the three movements of which are performed without a single note being played. The content of the composition is meant to be perceived as the sounds of the environment that the listeners hear while it is performed, rather than merely as four minutes and thirty three seconds of silence, and the piece became one of the most controversial compositions of the 20th century. Another famous creation of Cage's is the prepared piano (a piano with its sound altered by placing various objects in the strings), for which he wrote numerous dance-related works and a few concert pieces, the best known of which is Sonatas and Interludes (1946–48).

His teachers included Henry Cowell (1933) and Arnold Schoenberg (1933–35), both known for their radical innovations in music and coincidentally their shared love of mushrooms, but Cage's major influences lay in various Eastern cultures. Through his studies of Indian philosophy and Zen Buddhism in the late 1940s, Cage came to the idea of chance-controlled music, which he started composing in 1951. The I Ching, an ancient Chinese classic text on changing events, became Cage's standard composition tool for the rest of his life. In a 1957 lecture, Experimental Music, he described music as "a purposeless play" which is "an affirmation of life – not an attempt to bring order out of chaos nor to suggest improvements in creation, but simply a way of waking up to the very life we're living".

Reviews

[julieta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un Belleza total este libro, como es una belleza la mente, y también el corazón de John Cage. Aquí discute su filosofía, sus influencias, (Thoreau, Satie, DT Suzuki, el I ching, etc), el proceso de su trabajo. Lo que para mi hace tan emocionante la visión de John Cage, es que es un pacifista, pero es un anarquista, en el mejor sentido del término. Es alguien que está en contra de el poder (en algún momento dice que le dan asco los gobernantes, y que nadie debe gobernar a otro), cree que la verdadera revolución será en donde las distintas visiones hacen sinergía, y no en la búsqueda del poder. Es emocionante. El dice que se identifica con Thoreau y con Duchamp; "por distintos que sean, en los dos hay una completa ausencia de interés en todo lo que signifique expresión de sí mismo.Thoreau sólo deseaba una cosa: ver y escuchar el mundo que le rodeaba. Y se interesó por la escritura, y aspiró a encontrar un tipo de escritura que permitiera a los otros no ver y entender como lo había hecho él, sino ver lo que él había visto y escuchar lo que él había escuchado. Sus palabras, no eran las que él elegía: le llegaban de lo que él elegía ver y escuchar." (pag.295) Lo que me emociona de esto, es que así es cómo Cage quiere hacer la música. Desapareciendo del medio, y convirtiendo su música no en una expresión de las emociones o del ego (a la manera del zen), sino en algo que transforma a quien la escucha, y le hace ver algo que no había visto.

Su pieza más famosa es la pieza silenciosa llamada 4´33´´, que lo más revolucionario que tiene es que para él, el hacer la pieza (que es silencio) te permite vivir la experiencia, de interpretarla, o de escucharla (o no escucharla), pero que la experiencia es lo importante. Puede ser que sea, o suene conceptual, pero lo que más me enamora es la filosofía de esto, las experiencias hay que vivirlas, no pensarlas. Y aunque Cage es un referente para la música conceptual, o para el arte moderno, él parte de la idea de que no es hacerse la idea de lo que vas a hacer, sino el vivirla, lo que te transforma.

Me encanta además esta editorial, Alias, que es una editorial hecha por el artista mexicano Damian Ortega.

[agustín n · Rating 4 out of 5]

muy interesante libro, sobre todo por la aproximación que permite hacia el interés de cage por el lenguaje y sus limites.

[Lucía Ramos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tqm John Cage <3

[Jaime Garba · Rating 5 out of 5]

te amo John Cage

[Regina Fuentes · Rating 4 out of 5]

junto a este libro he vuelto a producir y a explorar mis sonidos <3 gracias a los pájaros

[Xavier Roelens · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cage legt in deze tien interviews vooral uit hoe zijn muziekperformances in elkaar steken en wat zijn bedoelingen erachter zijn. En van daaruit weidt hij uit over politiek, geld, anarchie en democratie, macht en het wegblijven van macht. Zijn zenboeddhistische en taoistische inspiraties komen vaak aan bod, net als Thoreau, Joyce, een beetje Gertrude Stein, Buckminster Fuller, Duchamp, en vele andere vrienden en collega-muzikanten uit die periode. Hij kan spreken met de vrijheid van de buitenstaander waardoor onhaalbare ideeën afgewisseld worden met heel terechte opmerkingen over zijn verlangen naar meer verbondenheid in de samenleving doorheen de muziek. Spreekt zeker nog vandaag aan.

[Onsetsu Evan Cordes · Rating 4 out of 5]

A sprawling work full of answers and questions. The re-translation makes it feel a bit less like Cage speaking. But his voice definitely comes through.

[Stuart Estell · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating set of interviews. Cage the political thinker is perhaps a bit muddled but he's never less than interesting.

[Omstart · Rating 5 out of 5]

Las nociones de silencio, espacio y sonido adquieren una dimensión diferente cuando uno conoce lo que Cage pensaba sobre dichos conceptos.