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