Music is continually going up and down but no longer only on those stepping stones five seven twelve in number or the quarter tone.
John Cage: Experimental Music: Doctrine. Silence
Musical habits include scales modes theories of counterpoint and harmony and the study of the timbres singly and in combination of a limited number of sound-producing mechanisms. In mathematical terms they all concern discrete steps. They resemble walking – in the case of pitches on steppingstones twelve in number. This cautious stepping is not characteristic of the possibilities of magnetic tape which is revealing to us that music action or existence can occur at any pojnt or along any line or curve or what have you in total sound-space that we are in fact technically equipped to transform our contemporary awareness of nature’s manner of operation into art.
Again there is a parting of the ways. One has a choice. If he does not wish to give up his attempts to control sound he may complicate his musical technique towards an approximation of the new possibilities and awareness. (I use the word “approximation” because a measuring mind can never finally measure nature.) Or as before one may give up the desire to control sound clear his mind of music and set about discovering means to let sounds be themselves rather than vehicles for man-made theories or expressions of human sentiments.
John Cage: Experimental music. Silence
<a href=“/system/photos/118/original/steppingstones.jpg” rel=“lightbox” title="The installation “Quiet and relaxed, but alert” by Jana Winderen and Trond Lossius">
From the installation “Quiet and relaxed, but alert” by Jana Winderen and myself currently at Galleri F15. Photo by Jana Winderen.
