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.
Kyle Gann on music after the fact
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!)
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.
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!