MetaFilter posts tagged with johncage

Trimpin: Musical Sculptor

Kattullus — Mon, 04 May 2009 13:32:29 -0800

Seattle-based German artist Trimpin makes sculptural musical instruments. He was profiled in a mini-documentary by Washington public TV station KBTC a couple of years ago. Here are videos of some other works of art he's created, Fire Organ, Liquid Percussion, Cello, Sensors and Record Players, Contraption at Seattle-Tacoma Airport, MIDI-controlled Player Piano and Sheng High. Kyle Gann wrote an essay by that placed Trimpin in the tradition of John Cage, Harry Partch and other avant-garde American musical inventors. The audio of a nearly hour and a half long 1990 interview with Trimpin by Charles Amirkhanian can be downloaded from the Internet Archive. Another, more light-hearted interview in connection to his show at this year's SXSW, where a documentary about him premiered (trailer).

The Music Text Composition Generator

Sailormom — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 19:52:36 -0800

The P22 Music Text Composition Generator allows any text to be converted into a musical composition. This composition is displayed in musical notation and simultaneously generated as a midi file. The P22 Music Composition Font was proposed in 1997 to the John Cage Trust as an accompaniment to the John Cage text font based on the handwriting of the composer. The idea was basic and simple-every letter of the alphabet was assigned to a note on a scale. This would allow for any text to be converted into musical notation.

It's the oboes that really brought life to the performance, don't you think?

flapjax at midnite — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 18:03:27 -0800

John Cage's 4'33" has been discussed previous ly on MeFi, but you might've missed the full orchestral version. 4'33" has shown itself to be a hugely influential work if only for the fact that so many people know of it. The piece is often referenced in MeFi comments, sometimes appearing in unrelated or only tangentially related threads. Here's a small sampling: jpoulos. jfuller. mr_crash_davis. jfuller. evanizer. skwm. kozad. wheelieman. sotonohito, and immediately following sotonohito's comment in that thread, languagehat, LooseFilter, dydecker and more, in what turns into a lively discussion of this still controversial piece of music.

I'll take what's behind door number 4'33".

converge — Fri, 18 May 2007 21:07:38 -0800

John Cage gives a little concert on a 1960's gameshow called "I've Got a Secret." (Flashvid)

Very Slowly

roll truck roll — Sat, 30 Dec 2006 14:00:09 -0800

"To play this motif 840 times in succession, it would be advisable to prepare oneself beforehand, in the deepest silence, by serious immobilities." Erik Satie's Vexations (previously) was more-or-less disregarded as an unperformable thought experiment, until John Cage staged an eighteen-hour performance in 1963. The event cemented Satie's importance in avant-garde music and his influence on a generation of artists. In 2006, several musicians and artists performed their own renditions.

Writing Mesostics Does Not Takes a Great OULIPO Faith

Falconetti — Mon, 04 Sep 2006 18:20:46 -0800

Mesostics. John Cage invented this form of inclusion/acrostic poetry. Some examples by John Cage: Raphael Mostel, Mark Tobey, Marcel Duchamp, and Erik Satie. You can create your own through an automated mesostomatic process. Even cabbies have gotten in on the act.

No, I'm not sure how they get it to not devolve into a wall of feedback... though that'd be pretty rad too.

Rev. Syung Myung Me — Sat, 15 Jul 2006 09:05:19 -0800

A Piano In A Gallery. David Cunningham (the guy behind The Flying Lizards! Wikipedia because the main at-least-quasi-official site's down, but while you wait 16 days for that, why not read this interview with Deborah Lizard for your FL Fix) and his new project... A Piano In A Gallery. No, he's not actually PLAYING the piano -- the visitors are. It's a sort of similar thing to both Brian Eno's gallery work with ambient tape loops on different time cycles, creating an ever-shifting collage of sound and David Byrne's recent Playing The Building. The room is mic'd, and the sound is run through a piano, and amplified, both bringing background noises to the foreground AND creating feedback-style loops, as those sounds are also run into the mics and so forth. So... if you happen to be in London.... [via WFMU]

As Slow As Possible.

arse_hat — Thu, 04 May 2006 11:55:22 -0800

E and E-sharp will end tomorrow. Only 631 and a half years to go.

Rhythmic Research Fellows

Squid Voltaire — Thu, 02 Mar 2006 12:24:17 -0800

American Mavericks: Fascinating radio piece about the ultra-modernist composers, narrated by Suzanne Vega. [more inside]

Su — Sat, 29 Jun 2002 14:57:12 -0800

John Cage's representatives try to claim copyright on silence. [Ref: 4'33"]
Okay.