The term ''Number Pieces'' refers to a body of late compositions (40, or 41 if ''Seventeen'' was actually composed) by

John Cage John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading fi ...

. Each piece is named after the number of performers involved: for instance, ''Seven'' is a piece for seven performers, ''One⁹'' (read "One Nine") is the ninth work for one performer, and ''1O1'' is a piece for an orchestra of 101 musicians. The vast majority of these works were composed using Cage's time bracket technique: the score consists of short fragments (frequently just one note, with or without dynamics) and indications, in minutes and seconds, during which the fragment can start and by what time it should end. Time brackets can be fixed (e.g. from 1.15 to 2.00) or flexible (e.g. from anywhere between 1.15 and 1.45, and to anywhere between 2.00 and 2.30). All of the ''Number Pieces'' were composed during the last six years of Cage's life, 1987–1992. Most are for traditional instruments, with six exceptions that range from works for rainsticks, the Japanese aerophone shō and

conch shells Conch () is a common name of a number of different medium-to-large-sized sea snails. Conch shells typically have a high spire and a noticeable siphonal canal (in other words, the shell comes to a noticeable point at both ends). In North ...

to an electronically amplified version of ''

4′33″ ''4′33″'' (pronounced "four minutes, thirty-three seconds" or just "four thirty-three") is a three- movement composition by American experimental composer John Cage. It was composed in 1952, for any instrument or combination of instruments, ...

''. This article lists all ''Number Pieces'', organized by number of performers.

List of ''Number Pieces''

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six to Twenty

Twenty to 108

Cage's late orchestral works are to be performed without a conductor.

Notes

* Emmerik, Paul van (in collaboration with Herbert Henck and András Wilheim)
"A John Cage Compendium"
* Haskins, Rob. 2004. ''"An Anarchic Society of Sounds": The Number Pieces of John Cage''. Ph.D. Diss., Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester. * Popoff, A. 2010. "John Cage’s ''Number Pieces'': The Meta-Structure of Time-Brackets and the Notion of Time". ''

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 ...

'', pp. 65–84, 48/1. * Popoff, A. 2011. ''Indeterminate music and probability spaces: The case of John Cage's number pieces'', Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Volume 6726 LNAI, pp. 220–229 * Popoff, A. 2015. ''A Statistical Approach to the Global Structure of John Cage’s Number Piece Five5'', Springer Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence, Volume 9110 LNAI, pp. 231–236 * Weisser, B. 2003. " '... the whole paper would potentially be sound': Time-Brackets and the ''Number Pieces''". ''

'', pp. 176–225, 41/2. * ''Musicage: Cage Muses on Words, Art, Music'', editor:

Joan Retallack Joan Retallack (born October 13, 1941) is an American poet, critic, biographer, and multi-disciplinary scholar. She is the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Professor of Humanities at Bard College where she teaches courses in poetics, poethic ...

, Wesleyan University Press 1996,

External links

John Cage Database – Worklist
includes a complete catalogue of Cage's music, details and lists of recordings for all pieces.
John Cage Complete Works
hosted and developed by the John Cage Trust

includes a number of essays on ''Number Pieces'' in general, ''One⁴'', ''One⁹'', ''Two²'', ''Two³'', ''Two⁴'', ''Four'', ''Four⁴'', ''Twenty-Nine'' and ''108''.

* ttp://bach.bogen.pagespro-orange.fr/html/one13.htm Publication release notice by C. F. Peters, New York: ''One¹³'' for cello with curved bow and 3 loud-speakers {{Portal bar, Classical music Compositions by John Cage Music with dedications