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Cheap Imitation
''Cheap Imitation'' is a piece for solo piano by John Cage, composed in 1969. It is an indeterminate piece created using the '' I Ching'' and based, rhythmically, on ''Socrate'' by Erik Satie. History of composition Like numerous other works by Cage, ''Cheap Imitation'' was a result of his collaboration with Merce Cunningham's dance company. However, in this case the original choreography relied not on Cage's music, but on a piano arrangement of Erik Satie's symphonic drama ''Socrate''. In 1947 Cunningham choreographed a dance based on the first movement of Satie's work, and Cage provided a two-piano transcription of the music (since Cunningham's dances were usually accompanied by piano only). In 1968 it was decided to expand the choreography by two movements, based on the remaining two movements of the Satie work.Pritchett 1993, 162. Cage, who was at the time working on ''HPSCHD'', a large multimedia work, requested help of an acquaintance from the University of Illinois, Arth ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Piano
The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboard, which is a row of keys (small levers) that the performer presses down or strikes with the fingers and thumbs of both hands to cause the hammers to strike the strings. It was invented in Italy by Bartolomeo Cristofori around the year 1700. Description The word "piano" is a shortened form of ''pianoforte'', the Italian term for the early 1700s versions of the instrument, which in turn derives from ''clavicembalo col piano e forte'' (key cimbalom with quiet and loud)Pollens (1995, 238) and ''fortepiano''. The Italian musical terms ''piano'' and ''forte'' indicate "soft" and "loud" respectively, in this context referring to the variations in volume (i.e., loudness) produced in response to a pianist's touch or pressure on the keys: the grea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Freeman Etudes
''Freeman Etudes'' are a set of etudes for solo violin composed by John Cage. Like the earlier ''Etudes Australes'' for piano, these works are incredibly complex, nearly impossible to perform, and represented for Cage the "practicality of the impossible" as an answer to the notion that resolving the world's political and social problems is impossible. Details In 1977 Cage was approached by Betty Freeman, who asked him to compose a set of etudes for violinist Paul Zukofsky (who would, at around the same time, also help Cage with work on the violin transcription of ''Cheap Imitation''). Cage decided to model the work on his earlier set of etudes for piano, ''Etudes Australes''. That work was a set of 32 etudes, 4 books of 8 etudes each, and composed using Indeterminacy in music, controlled chance by means of star charts and, as was usual for Cage, the ''I Ching''. Zukofsky asked Cage for music that would be notated in a conventional manner, which he assumed Cage was returning to in '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Perspectives Of New Music
''Perspectives of New Music'' (PNM) is a peer-reviewed academic journal specializing in music theory and analysis. It was established in 1962 by Arthur Berger and Benjamin Boretz (who were its initial editors-in-chief). ''Perspectives'' was first published by the Princeton University Press, initially supported by the Fromm Music Foundation.David Carson Berry, "''Journal of Music Theory'' under Allen Forte's Editorship," ''Journal of Music Theory'' 50/1 (2006), 21, n49. The first issue was favorably reviewed in the ''Journal of Music Theory'', which observed that Berger and Boretz had produced "a first issue which sustains such a high quality of interest and cogency among its articles that one suspects the long delay preceding the yet-unborn Spring 1963 issue may reflect a scarcity of material up to their standard". However, as the journal's editorial "perspective" coalesced, Fromm became—in the words of David Gable—disenchanted with the "exclusive viewpoint hatcame to dominate" ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Kostelanetz
Richard Cory Kostelanetz (born May 14, 1940) is an American artist, author, and critic. Birth and Education Kostelanetz was born to Boris Kostelanetz and Ethel Cory and is the nephew of the conductor Andre Kostelanetz. He has a B.A. (1962) from Brown University and an M.A. (1966) in American History from Columbia University under Woodrow Wilson, NYS Regents, and International Fellowships; he also studied at King's College London as a Fulbright Scholar during 1964-1965.''Directory of American Scholars'', 6th ed. (Bowker, 1974), Vol. I, p. 350. He is the recipient of grants from the Guggenheim Foundation (1967), Pulitzer Foundation (1965), the DAAD Berliner Kunstlerprogramm (1981–1983), Vogelstein Foundation (1980), Fund for Investigative Journalism (1981), Pollock-Krasner Foundation (2001), CCLM (1981), ASCAP (1983 annually to the present), American Public Radio Program Fund (1984), and the National Endowment for the Arts with ten individual awards (1976, 1978, 1979, 1981, 19 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Writings '67–'72
Writing is a medium of human communication which involves the representation of a language through a system of physically inscribed, mechanically transferred, or digitally represented symbols. Writing systems do not themselves constitute human languages (with the debatable exception of computer languages); they are a means of rendering language into a form that can be reconstructed by other humans separated by time and/or space. While not all languages use a writing system, those that do can complement and extend capacities of spoken language by creating durable forms of language that can be transmitted across space (e.g. written correspondence) and stored over time (e.g. libraries or other public records). It has also been observed that the activity of writing itself can have knowledge-transforming effects, since it allows humans to externalize their thinking in forms that are easier to reflect on, elaborate, reconsider, and revise. A system of writing relies on many of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Apartment House 1776
''Apartment House 1776'' is a 1976 composition by the American composer John Cage, composed for the United States Bicentennial and premiered by six orchestras across the country in 1976. The work was commissioned jointly by the orchestras of Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Los Angeles, New York, and Philadelphia. In these performances, the work was performed together with Cage's 1975–76 orchestral work ''Renga''. Structure Following Cage's ''Musicircus'' principle (featuring what he called a "multiplicity of centers"), the work calls for four solo vocalists, each representing a different religious tradition in the United States: Protestant, Sephardic, Native American, and African American. The singers, who represent the four religious traditions practiced at the U.S.'s founding in 1776, select authentic songs from their respective traditions and sing them without attempting to match them to those of the other singers. The soloists for the original performances were Helen Schneyer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Song Books (Cage)
''Song Books (Solos for Voice 3–92)'' is a collection of short works by John Cage, composed and compiled by the composer in 1970. It contains pieces of four kinds: songs, songs with electronics, directions for a theatrical performance, and directions for a theatrical performance with electronics. "Any of these may be performed by one or more singers." Structure ''Song Books'' was published by in 1970 as three volumes: volume one contained ''Solos for Voice 3–58'', volume two contained ''Solos for Voice 59–92'', and the third volume, titled "Instructions", contains various tables and other materials necessary for performance of some of the pieces. The work explores a very wide variety of notation systems. Some Solos are given in standard notation, others employ a special brand of notation with circles of different sizes and lines instead of notes, still others are systems of dots and lines, etc. Some are not notated at all: the text is given using different fonts and font size ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Major Third
In classical music, a third is a musical interval encompassing three staff positions (see Interval number for more details), and the major third () is a third spanning four semitones. Forte, Allen (1979). ''Tonal Harmony in Concept and Practice'', p.8. Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. Third edition . "A large 3rd, or ''major 3rd'' (M3) encompassing four half steps." Along with the minor third, the major third is one of two commonly occurring thirds. It is qualified as ''major'' because it is the larger of the two: the major third spans four semitones, the minor third three. For example, the interval from C to E is a major third, as the note E lies four semitones above C, and there are three staff positions from C to E. Diminished and augmented thirds span the same number of staff positions, but consist of a different number of semitones (two and five). The major third may be derived from the harmonic series as the interval between the fourth and fifth harmonics. The maj ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mode (music)
In music theory, the term mode or ''modus'' is used in a number of distinct senses, depending on context. Its most common use may be described as a type of musical scale coupled with a set of characteristic melodic and harmonic behaviors. It is applied to major and minor keys as well as the seven diatonic modes (including the former as Ionian and Aeolian) which are defined by their starting note or tonic. ( Olivier Messiaen's modes of limited transposition are strictly a scale type.) Related to the diatonic modes are the eight church modes or Gregorian modes, in which authentic and plagal forms of scales are distinguished by ambitus and tenor or reciting tone. Although both diatonic and gregorian modes borrow terminology from ancient Greece, the Greek ''tonoi'' do not otherwise resemble their mediaeval/modern counterparts. In the Middle Ages the term modus was used to describe both intervals and rhythm. Modal rhythm was an essential feature of the modal notation system ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Transposition (music)
In music, transposition refers to the process or operation of moving a collection of notes ( pitches or pitch classes) up or down in pitch by a constant interval. For example, one might transpose an entire piece of music into another key. Similarly, one might transpose a tone row or an unordered collection of pitches such as a chord so that it begins on another pitch. The transposition of a set ''A'' by ''n'' semitones is designated by ''T''''n''(''A''), representing the addition ( mod 12) of an integer ''n'' to each of the pitch class integers of the set ''A''. Thus the set (''A'') consisting of 0–1–2 transposed by 5 semitones is 5–6–7 (''T''5(''A'')) since , , and . Scalar transpositions In scalar transposition, every pitch in a collection is shifted up or down a fixed number of scale steps within some scale. The pitches remain in the same scale before and after the shift. This term covers both chromatic and diatonic transpositions as follows. Chromatic transpo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chromaticism
Chromaticism is a compositional technique interspersing the primary diatonic scale, diatonic pitch (music), pitches and chord (music), chords with other pitches of the chromatic scale. In simple terms, within each octave, diatonic music uses only seven different notes, rather than the twelve available on a standard piano keyboard. Music is chromatic when it uses more than just these seven notes. Chromaticism is in contrast or addition to tonality or diatonic and chromatic, diatonicism and modality (music), modality (the major scale, major and minor scale, minor, or "white key", scales). Chromatic elements are considered, "elaborations of or substitutions for diatonic scale members".Matthew Brown; Schenker, "The Diatonic and the Chromatic in Schenker's "Theory of Harmonic Relations", ''Journal of Music Theory'', Vol. 30, No. 1 (Spring 1986), pp. 1–33, citation on p. 1. Development of chromaticism Chromaticism began to develop in the late Renaissance music, Renaissance p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Musical Scale
In music theory, a scale is any set of musical notes ordered by fundamental frequency or pitch. A scale ordered by increasing pitch is an ascending scale, and a scale ordered by decreasing pitch is a descending scale. Often, especially in the context of the common practice period, most or all of the melody and harmony of a musical work is built using the notes of a single scale, which can be conveniently represented on a staff with a standard key signature. Due to the principle of octave equivalence, scales are generally considered to span a single octave, with higher or lower octaves simply repeating the pattern. A musical scale represents a division of the octave space into a certain number of scale steps, a scale step being the recognizable distance (or interval) between two successive notes of the scale. However, there is no need for scale steps to be equal within any scale and, particularly as demonstrated by microtonal music, there is no limit to how many notes can be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
