• Home
  • About
    • What’s going on here
    • Kyle Gann
    • Contact
  • AJBlogs
  • ArtsJournal

PostClassic

Kyle Gann on music after the fact

My Peripheral Consciousness is Tweaked

December 16, 2010 by Kyle Gann

I suppose that people will keep e-mailing me until I acknowledge the “Cage Against the Machine” campaign in England, whereby musicians are trying to make a recording of 4’33” the hit single at Christmas time in order to irritate or otherwise inconvenience someone named Simon Cowell. I admire the wordplay, and am just hip enough to get the reference. On the chance that it might positively affect sales of my book, I hope they succeed. I presume Simon is no descendant of Henry. Otherwise, this falls into the same category as all the incessant Facebook demands that I “like” something, or that a photo of me had been “tagged” (and if I take the bait and click on the link, no photo ever seems forthcoming). It’s a little over my head, and I suspect that raising my head will involve me in some distraction from things I’d rather be doing. Best of luck to all well-intended parties.

Share:

  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Google+ (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)

Filed Under: main

Comments

  1. Samuel Vriezen says

    December 16, 2010 at 9:44 am

    I’m not sure this campaign is entirely serious. Yet it does accomplish some interesting things. One thing that struck me just now is that if they succeed and get all the radio channels around christam to play 4’33” they would have accomplished something close to Cage’s original vision for “Silent Prayer” (sell it to the Muzak Co.)
    Secondly, the campaign has led to a live TV performance of 4’33” on Dutch national TV by Reinbert de Leeuw – in one of the best watched daily shows. A complete performance, mind you – more than what is usually allotted to music in that show! And it’s quite a beautiful performance too. Turns out that to most people’s surprise, most viewers did not change channels. (Myself, I don’t find that so surprising – because it is a very gripping piece of modern composition when executed well, and also it’s very democratic, in that everybody can relate to it!)

  2. Samuel Vriezen says

    December 16, 2010 at 10:53 am

    BTW, the TV clip of De Leeuw playing 4’33” is online here:
    http://dewerelddraaitdoor.vara.nl/Video-detail.628.0.html?&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=19550&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=626&tx_ttnews%5Bcat%5D=148&cHash=8296f8e189d26870e1fc9bb80d07b1d4
    It’s quite worth watching – there’s some talk about the piece in Dutch first, and then the performance itself starts after about 5 minutes into the video.
    KG replies: Thanks, Samuel.

  3. Joseph Bertolozzi says

    December 20, 2010 at 2:04 pm

    BTW you should know that FaceBook invades a person’s email list when you sign up (or they used to; I don’t know their current procedures), and this results in FB constantly sending invitations to ALL your contacts to join. It makes it seem as if the person from whom you are receiving repeated invitations is constantly hounding you to join. Not that it wouldn’t be nice enough to “friend” someone, but I personally would prefer to “friend” someone when and where I want to…you know a real friend, not just someone I’ve e-mailed once or twice.
    And while I’m here, let me say that I continue to enjoy PostClassic. Happy new Year, Happy Everything!

Kyle Gann

Just as Harry Partch called himself a "philosophic music man seduced into carpentry," I'm a composer seduced into musicology... Read More…

What’s going on here

So classical music is dead, they say. Well, well. This blog will set out to consider that dubious factoid with equanimity, if not downright enthusiasm [More]

Kyle Gann's Home Page More than you ever wanted to know about me at www.kylegann.com

PostClassic Radio The radio station that goes with the blog, all postclassical music, all the time; see the playlist at kylegann.com.

Recent archives for this blog

Archives

Recent Comments

  • Michael Robinson on Another Do-It-Yourselfer: “Your compositional palette intrigues me, the number 33 being multiplicative of my birthday, March 11. Perusing your scores, I also…” Sep 3, 17:29
  • Peter Thoegersen on Another Do-It-Yourselfer: “You do realize I love your pieces here, and theyre not for YOU theyre for US. Man.…” Sep 2, 16:33
  • mclaren on Another Do-It-Yourselfer: “I used to think you were a good composer who sometimes produced a great piece. Now I think you're a…” Aug 28, 23:41
  • Henry Gwiazda on Another Do-It-Yourselfer: “Hey Kyle, Just finished listening to Orbital Resonance. I'm very enthusiastic about it. It really sounds like…” Aug 24, 16:48
  • Lyle Sanford on An Analytical Cornucopia, Wanted or Not: “Thanks so much for doing this. A few months back I read your American Music in the 20th Century and…” May 28, 08:52

Sites to See

American Mavericks - the Minnesota Public radio program about American music (scripted by Kyle Gann with Tom Voegeli)

Kalvos & Damian's New Music Bazaar - a cornucopia of music, interviews, information by, with, and on hundreds of intriguing composers who are not the Usual Suspects

Iridian Radio - an intelligently mellow new-music station

New Music Box - the premiere site for keeping up with what American composers are doing and thinking

The Rest Is Noise - The fine blog of critic Alex Ross

William Duckworth's Cathedral - the first interactive web composition and home page of a great postminimalist composer

Mikel Rouse's Home Page - the greatest opera composer of my generation

Eve Beglarian's Home Page- great Downtown composer

David Doty's Just Intonation site

Erling Wold's Web Site - a fine San Francisco composer of deceptively simple-seeming music, and a model web site

The Dane Rudhyar Archive - the complete site for the music, poetry, painting, and ideas of a greatly underrated composer who became America's greatest astrologer

Utopian Turtletop, John Shaw's thoughtful blog about new music and other issues

Return to top of page

an ArtsJournal blog

This blog published under a Creative Commons license

Copyright © 2018 · Magazine Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.