John Cage's "Rules for Students and Teachers"

John Cage performing 4'33'' at a toy piano

John Cage was a composer whose life spanned most of the 20th century (1912-1992). He was influenced by composers such as Schoenberg, Messiaen and Boulez. He believed in creating compositional space in which musicians and audiences alike could participate in the creation of the music. Cage's style can be thought of as controlled chaos or chance music. For example, he was known to make decisions while he was composing by rolling dice. His most famous piece is 4'33'', which involves a performer with his or her instrument sitting silently for 4 minutes and 33 seconds. The purpose of this composition is to explore the sound in the room, the "what might happen" in any given period of time and space. It is about chance in the moment. (A friend of mine performed this piece in a recital. A few of us knew about the piece beforehand, so we brought stuff to throw at him. It was a bit cheeky of us!)

"Fontana Mix" a composition by Cage

Cage is also known for redefining notation, the visual language of music. You can see here an example of his charting of improvisation and preparation--controlled chaos. This can also be called 'aleatoric' music. Often performers are given suggested notes for a given amount of time and they then have to improvise with the material offered. Thus, the performance is just as much determined by the performer as it is by the composer.



Click here to read about a recent dance concert inspired by Cage, performed in a rock quarry. The stage was set up in the round with the dancers in the center and the 150 musicians seated around the outside. The craziest part was that each of the musicians had their own part to play, and each was improvising with a given set of musical ideas. The concert sounds like it was amazing. I wish I could have been there.

Here is John Cage performing one of his pieces, "Water Walk", on a 50's TV show. Fascinating! 



As you can see, his music requires a lot of participation and engagement by musicians and audiences alike. It is not just a matter of just learning notes, or listening to notes and sounds for that matter. Cage's music gives space for listening to others and responding to the whole, or simply for the chance of the moment (e.g., the laughter of a TV audience). Whether or not you like his music, that is a totally different conversation. Mostly, I like the concepts that he is promoting as an example of engagement and participation, even if his music is not really my (or your) cup of tea. 

With this in mind, here are the rules of engagement that I talked about in class. May we learn to play together this year!

John Cage's "Rules for Students and Teachers"

1. Find a place you trust, and then try trusting it for awhile. 
2. General duties of a student—pull everything out of your teacher; pull everything out of your fellow students. 
3. General duties of a teacher—pull everything out of your students. 
4. Consider everything an experiment. 
5. Be self-disciplined—this means finding someone wise or smart and choosing to follow them. To be disciplined is to follow in a good way. To be self-disciplined is to follow in a better way. 
6. Nothing is a mistake. There's no win and no fail, there's only make. 
7. The only rule is work. If you work it will lead to something. It's the people who do all of the work all of the time who eventually catch on to things. 
8. Don't try to create and analyze at the same time. They're different processes. 
9. Be happy whenever you can manage it. Enjoy yourself. It's lighter than you think. 
10. Break rules. Even your own rules. Leave plenty of room for X quantities.

"Mozart Mix" by John Cage