Silencing the Sounded Self


Book Description

Christopher Shultis observes an intriguing contrast between John Cage's affinity for Thoreau and fellow composer Charles Ives' connection with Emerson. Although both Thoreau and Emerson have been called transcendentalists, they held different views about the relationship between nature and humanity and the artistÍs role in creativity. Shultis explores the artist's "sounded" or "silenced" selves-the self that takes control of the creative experience versus the one that seeks to coexist with it-and shows how understanding this distinction allows a better understanding of Cage. Having placed Cage in this experimental tradition of music, poetry, and literature, Shultis offers provocative interpretations of Cage's aesthetic views, especially as they concern the issue of non-intention, and addresses some of his most path-breaking music as well as several experimentally innovative written works.




Silencing the Sounded Self


Book Description

Christopher Shultis observes an intriguing contrast between John Cage's affinity for Thoreau and fellow composer Charles Ives' connection with Emerson. Although both Thoreau and Emerson have been called transcendentalists, they held different views about the relationship between nature and humanity and the artistÍs role in creativity. Shultis explores the artist's "sounded" or "silenced" selves-the self that takes control of the creative experience versus the one that seeks to coexist with it-and shows how understanding this distinction allows a better understanding of Cage. Having placed Cage in this experimental tradition of music, poetry, and literature, Shultis offers provocative interpretations of Cage's aesthetic views, especially as they concern the issue of non-intention, and addresses some of his most path-breaking music as well as several experimentally innovative written works.




Silence


Book Description

John Cage is the outstanding composer of avant-garde music today. The Saturday Review said of him: "Cage possesses one of the rarest qualities of the true creator- that of an original mind- and whether that originality pleases, irritates, amuses or outrages is irrelevant." "He refuses to sermonize or pontificate. What John Cage offers is more refreshing, more spirited, much more fun-a kind of carefree skinny-dipping in the infinite. It's what's happening now." –The American Record Guide "There is no such thing as an empty space or an empty time. There is always something to see, something to hear. In fact, try as we may to make a silence, we cannot. Sounds occur whether intended or not; the psychological turning in direction of those not intended seems at first to be a giving up of everything that belongs to humanity. But one must see that humanity and nature, not separate, are in this world together, that nothing was lost when everything was given away."




Silence


Book Description

John Cage is the outstanding composer of avant-garde music today. The Saturday Review said of him: “Cage possesses one of the rarest qualities of the true creator- that of an original mind- and whether that originality pleases, irritates, amuses or outrages is irrelevant.” “He refuses to sermonize or pontificate. What John Cage offers is more refreshing, more spirited, much more fun-a kind of carefree skinny-dipping in the infinite. It’s what’s happening now.” –The American Record Guide “There is no such thing as an empty space or an empty time. There is always something to see, something to hear. In fact, try as we may to make a silence, we cannot. Sounds occur whether intended or not; the psychological turning in direction of those not intended seems at first to be a giving up of everything that belongs to humanity. But one must see that humanity and nature, not separate, are in this world together, that nothing was lost when everything was given away.”




Begin Again


Book Description

A man of extraordinary and seemingly limitless talents—musician, inventor, composer, poet, and even amateur mycologist—John Cage became a central figure of the avant-garde early in his life and remained at that pinnacle until his death in 1992 at the age of eighty. Award-winning biographer Kenneth Silverman gives us the first comprehensive life of this remarkable artist. Silverman begins with Cage’s childhood in interwar Los Angeles and his stay in Paris from 1930 to 1931, where immersion in the burgeoning new musical and artistic movements triggered an explosion of his creativity. Cage continued his studies in the United States with the seminal modern composer Arnold Schoenberg, and he soon began the experiments with sound and percussion instruments that would develop into his signature work with prepared piano, radio static, random noise, and silence. Cage’s unorthodox methods still influence artists in a wide range of genres and media. Silverman concurrently follows Cage’s rich personal life, from his early marriage to his lifelong personal and professional partnership with choreographer Merce Cunningham, as well as his friendships over the years with other composers, artists, philosophers, and writers. Drawing on interviews with Cage’s contemporaries and friends and on the enormous archive of his letters and writings, and including photographs, facsimiles of musical scores, and Web links to illustrative sections of his compositions, Silverman gives us a biography of major significance: a revelatory portrait of one of the most important cultural figures of the twentieth century. !--?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /--




Where the Heart Beats


Book Description

A “heroic” biography of John Cage and his “awakening through Zen Buddhism”—“a kind of love story” about a brilliant American pioneer of the creative arts who transformed himself and his culture (The New York Times) Composer John Cage sought the silence of a mind at peace with itself—and found it in Zen Buddhism, a spiritual path that changed both his music and his view of the universe. “Remarkably researched, exquisitely written,” Where the Heart Beats weaves together “a great many threads of cultural history” (Maria Popova, Brain Pickings) to illuminate Cage’s struggle to accept himself and his relationship with choreographer Merce Cunningham. Freed to be his own man, Cage originated exciting experiments that set him at the epicenter of a new avant-garde forming in the 1950s. Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, Yoko Ono, Allan Kaprow, Morton Feldman, and Leo Castelli were among those influenced by his ‘teaching’ and ‘preaching.’ Where the Heart Beats shows the blossoming of Zen in the very heart of American culture.




No Such Thing as Silence


Book Description

First performed at the midpoint of the twentieth century, John Cage’s 4'33", a composition conceived of without a single musical note, is among the most celebrated and ballyhooed cultural gestures in the history of modern music. A meditation on the act of listening and the nature of performance, Cage’s controversial piece became the iconic statement of the meaning of silence in art and is a landmark work of American music. In this book, Kyle Gann, one of the nation’s leading music critics, explains 4'33" as a unique moment in American culture and musical composition. Finding resemblances and resonances of 4'33" in artworks as wide-ranging as the paintings of the Hudson River School and the music of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, he provides much-needed cultural context for this fundamentally challenging and often misunderstood piece. Gann also explores Cage’s craft, describing in illuminating detail the musical, philosophical, and even environmental influences that informed this groundbreaking piece of music. Having performed 4'33" himself and as a composer in his own right, Gann offers the reader both an expert’s analysis and a highly personal interpretation of Cage’s most divisive work.




Jean Sibelius


Book Description

An illuminating investigation into the interdisciplinary impact of the beloved modern classical composer. Few composers have enjoyed such critical acclaim—or longevity—as Jean Sibelius, who died in 1957 aged ninety-one. Always more than simply a Finnish national figure, an “apparition from the woods” as he ironically described himself, Sibelius’s life spanned turbulent and tumultuous events, and his work is central to the story of late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century music. This book situates Sibelius within a rich interdisciplinary environment, paying attention to his relationship with architecture, literature, politics, and the visual arts. Drawing on the latest developments in Sibelius research, it is intended as an accessible and rewarding introduction for the general reader, and it also offers a fresh and provocative interpretation for those more familiar with his music.




Sounds of Silence Breaking


Book Description

This book contains a broad range of Millers writings and intertwines interpretations of educational theories, events and practices throughout private and public dimensions of Miller's life.




Handbook of Communication in the Public Sphere


Book Description

As you are reading this, you are finding yourself in the ubiquitous public sphere that is the Web. Ubiquitous, and yet not universally accessible. This volume addresses this dilemma of the public sphere, which is by definition open to everyone but in practice often excludes particular groups of people in particular societies at particular points in time. The guiding questions for this collection of articles are therefore: Who has access to the public sphere? How is this access enabled or disabled? Under what conditions is it granted or withheld, and by whom? We regard the public sphere as the nodal point for the discourses of business, politics and media, and this basic assumption is also s reflected in the structure of the volume. Each of these three macro-topics comprises chapters by international scholars from a variety of disciplines and research traditions who each combine up-to-date overviews of the relevant literature with their own cutting-edge research into aspects of different public spheres such as corporate promotional communication, political rhetoric or genre features of electronic mass media. The broad scope of the volume is perhaps best reflected in a comprehensive discussion of communication technologies ranging from conventional spoken and written formats such as company brochures, political speeches and TV shows to emerging ones like customer chat forums, political blogs and text messaging. Due to the books' wide scope, its interdisciplinary approach and its clear structure, we are sure that whether you work in communication and media studies, linguistics, political science, sociology or marketing, you will find this handbook an invaluable guide offering state-of-the -art literature reviews and exciting new research in your field and adjacent areas.