Danielle Woerner wrote:

>as for whether one might be happier participating in music of Cage, Reich,
>at al., ca depend.  Cage used silence and shock (and sometimes, silence as
>a shock) in so much of his music that to participate audibly would likely
>mean to lose the impact and message.  And, well, here's an experience of
>doing AGMA chorus work in Philip Glass's The Civil Wars, Rome portion,
>several years ago in NYC: While the solos were arching and lovely, soaring
>as they did over the ritualistic rhythmic textures laid down by the
>instrumentalists and chorus, all the players and choristers found ourselves
>complaining bitterly about the piece because our parts were on the one hand
>so monotonous and on the other hand required such unremitting counting to
>make sure that when one DID have one of those minute pitch or timing
>changes came at the right time...all of use would rather have been
>listening to the piece than doing it, under those circumstances!

I think this is a very good point!  I myself have not had a lot of
experience performing "minimalist" (understand this is an oversimplifying
blanket term covering a number of composers of different styles) music.
I've played violin in Adams' "Short Ride in a Fast Machine" and conducted
Steve Reich's New York Counterpoint for clarinet ensemble.  The playing
experience was not pleasant.  As a violinist trained in the "standard
repertoire" I dislike having to produce the same riffs over and over with
precision.  This is what synthesizers were born to do!  Conducting the
Reich, on the other hand, was an interesting challenge--maintaining tempo
and keeping one's place in the music while giving the appropriate cues.
But here the conductor has an advantage.  While each individual part is
just a cog in a wheel the conductor is the mastermind responsible for
running the entire operation.  The mind is occupied with more things.  I
wonder if it's really possible for a player to have a sense of structure
in a piece like that.

For me as a player in an ensemble the communal effect comes especially
from participating in the unfolding of the musical and dramatic structure
of the work.  I confess to being at a loss as to feeling either the
structure or drama in pieces like the ones I've described (at least from
the player's point of view).  Sure you can say, "We did it!" at the end
of a successful (i.e., technically accurate) performance, but in the final
analysis what's the point? Being a creature of the Enlightenment I don't
understand "trance and dance" music.  I agree that such music DOES have
change and variety, and I even confess to having an initial enthusiasm for
it (there was a time when I thought that Riley's "In C" was a great piece).
Maybe it's a pendulum thing--I'm in my rational/emotive phase right now so
I'm more interested in what composers like Mozart, Schubert, Schoenberg,
Carter, Varese et al., have to tell me.  Speaking of Varese, I've also
conducted Ionisation and I can tell you that the way this work evolves
is a continuing and rewarding challenge for conductor and players alike.

I've always been intrigued by Cage, possibly because I can always get
a lot of mileage out of him in a music appreciation class.  I think he
had a lot of provocative ideas about the nature of music, but that's just
conventional wisdom.  I think that to experience Cage's work in the spirit
he intended (and how can we ever be sure what he intended? I'm not sure he
knew himself the full implications of his work) is to change one's outlook
on life itself, not just music or art.  Whether this is a good thing is
open to question.  A couple of quotes come to mind (and we know how Cage
loved stories).  Schoenberg is supposed to have said, "either what I do is
music, or what Cage does is music, but they can't BOTH be music." And there
is the Zen saying, "Before studying Zen, men are men and mountains are
mountains.  While studying Zen, things become confused.  After studying
Zen, men are men and mountains are mountains." I take this to mean roughly
that only through the process of completely deconstructing reality and
rebuilding it do you fully understand reality.  Cage deconstructed the
"reality" of music.  After experiencing Cage and realizing that NONE of
the tools you have used to understand music work on his works, you come
to question the tools themselves.  When you go back to what you formerly
considered to be "real" music, you recognize it for what it is but you
hear it in a new way.  And there's no going back to the old way.

What for Cage began (by his own admission, for what it's worth) as an
inability to hear tonality the way most of us do became an opportunity to
go into a completely different direction.  I don't think his work itself
will last, but his presence has changed the way we think about music,
probably forever.

>So I think there's less difference between "western" and
>"tribal"/indigenous musics than there appears at first glance.  It's all
>about getting together to tell stories around the campfire, as it were.

I think that music is not only a social art, but also a source of
individual satisfaction.  Not all the satisfactions of life are dependent
on the interchange between individuals or groups.  Music as a form of
self-amusement exists in all cultures, as far as I know.  It's maybe not
the most important part, but I don't think it can be ignored.  In our
society, art has a definite social function, but after all, in creating a
work of art the artist must first please him/herself.  The society then
puts a kind of trust in the artist, to do good work--work that benefits
society, much as we have confidence in our doctor's diagnosis, or that the
plumber will get things working again.  If we can't all be artists, we must
at least UNDERSTAND what the artist is doing in order for art to have any
social function at all.  What little I know about African music seems
consistent with this point of view also, so it's not so far from what you
are saying about "storytelling." There has to be an understanding and a
sense of common endeavor between the artist and the audience in order for
the experience to have meaning.

Chris Bonds