John Cage, "Aria," performed by Justin Friello

Justin Friello performs John Cage's "Aria," composed in 1958, and first performed by Cathy Berberian. This performance took place outside in Theatre X at SUNY Purchase college.

To all those who have requested a score or would like to request one: I cannot legally send you copies of the score. Since I am now a co-founder of the Fluorescent Sounds Music Festival and working closely with the John Cage Music Foundation, I do not wish to risk my relationship with them. I apologize for this inconvenience.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• John
• Cage
• Justin
• Friello
• Cathy
• Berberian
• classical
• music
• performance
• SUNY
• Purchase
• college
• singing
• experimental
• voice

[EarleBrown]

@flyingV1043 Yes. He's grouping them simply by determining the boundaries of the movements and the composition as a whole, thereby separating the indeterminate sounds into sections. The environment determines the sounds. Like I said before, Cage was not interested in determining the sounds. He did, however, determine the timings of the movements, thereby separating (organizing) the sounds into sections and inside of the piece itself, discerning which sounds make up the piece and which do not.

[flyingV1043]

@EarleBrown Is he really the one grouping them though or is it the environment that determines what goes on?

[EarleBrown]

@flyingV1043 Cage wasn't interested in determining the sounds themselves. That does not mean, however, they aren't organized. Grouping sounds together within a time bracket is a form of organization. That's a fact. The term organization is misleading because it implies pattern/ repetition. We could, for any given performance. number the sounds in the order in which they occur. Those X number of sounds occur in an order determined during the performance of the piece and constitute its structure.

[flyingV1043]

@EarleBrown It is organizing perception, not what you perceive.

[EarleBrown]

@flyingV1043 Determining start and stop points and defining sounds that occur between those points as being part of the piece is a form of organization. It's loose, very loose. But organization nonetheless.

[flyingV1043]

@EarleBrown than constructing a piece based controlled pitches and rhythms.

[flyingV1043]

@EarleBrown I am just responding to comments made about 4'33", I understand this is not a recording of it. I disagree with you though. I think that because of Cage's views on chance and his personal goal to become eradicate ego, the idea of him viewing 4'33" as an organizational composition (other than defining it's starting and ending points isn't likely) isn't very likely. He is not organizing sound, he is simply defining when to start and stop listening to the environment around us rather

[EarleBrown]

@flyingV1043 Okay. This is not a video for that piece. You must understand, however, that even though the sounds themselves are indeterminate, the organization of them was done by Cage within the construction of the three movements of 4'33". Cage defined the sounds as belonging to one of those three movements and each falls at a point within the brackets of those movements and at points within the realm of the piece as a whole, though the choice of those sounds was not made.

[flyingV1043]

@EarleBrown For 4'33"? That is the piece I am speaking about.

[EarleBrown]

@flyingV1043 I'm not sure what you mean. He did, in fact, organize the text, timbral assignments, and the relative pitch relationships.