cage and gould

[Jim Morrison <jim_morrison@sprynet.com>]

I'm sorry guys, but I just can't let Tim's rant go without some kind of
tangential comment.

Gould and Cage are not so very tenuously related as Tim claims.

I don't see how anyone could listen to the Idea of North or the Latecomers
and not see some very real connection between the use of spoken word as an
art form and Cage's on ideas about ambience as art.  It's true that Gould
heavily manipulated the interviews while Cage preferred the more free-form
approach, but they are still in the same boat when it comes to idea that
what people say can be art/music just as much as what they produce on their
musical instruments.

Also, I've been doing some research on Cage and it looks like he was kind of
a low-profile animal rights person, like Gould.  He was distrustful of big
organizations due to the power relationships they can.  Gould too had some
negative things to say about power relationships, esp when it came to piano
concerti.

Cage  found working of music one of the greatest aspects of his life and
spend much of his time doing is, as Gould.  He had an odd sense of humor.
And get this, he distrusted improvisation, just as Gould did.  Cage's ideas
on ambience and chance and indeterminacy have to do with getting to a
genuine unmannered moment.  Gould too thought that improvisation was far too
frequently empty of "soul" or original thought.

They both liked unusual pianos and recorded sound.  Cage wrote works for a
prepared piano.  Gould played on the harpsi-piano and a cheap and ugly
harpsichord and was so fond of one particularly heavily altered piano that
he felt crushed when CD 318 is broken.  (Some would even say that his
playing was never the same afterwards.)

They were both interested in Schoenberg, and Cage even studied with him.

Come on guys.  Please take a calmer and closer look.    At least a few of us
see some similarities.  So many connections in fact  that the freaking Glenn
Gould Magazine itself saw fit to publish an article saying so.  (I've never
seen it though.)

Kevin Bazzana, surely one of the world's experts on Glenn Gould, even
agrees.  To quote from his excellent work (my fav gould book) "In his
approval of the idea that not only speech but all sounds were becoming
increasingly valid as the stuff of music, Gould often sounded surprisingly
like another contemporary devotee of McLuhan: John Cage."  (page 74)

Gould and Cage are also both interested in the relationship of ethics to
music, more so, it looks like, than many other performer/composers.

Both were iconoclastic and felt little need to bow to tradition.

Are they soulmates?  Nope.  Do they share some of these similarities with
other people as well? Yep.  Can our understanding of each be better enhanced
by referring to the other?  I think so.

That's it for my comments on Cage and Gould.


Thanks for listening,


Jim