John Cage, love him or hate him, he was a man of extraordinary out-of-the-square thinking. I appreciate people who do not have qualms stretching the public’s imagination, redefine what constitutes as Art, let alone beautiful.
I was working on a bit of post-ModPo poetry study via the forums, hoping to chat about Wallace Stevens’s “The Snow Man.” It seems, though, that Professor Filreis has already discussed this poem via a KWH YouTube video (stay tuned, shall revisit this one).
I wanted to at least offer a ‘quick & dirty’ close read of Stevens by leaving a Cage Mesostic. Upon searching for the site (which stated it was not there – error msg) I found this John Cage site. It is fantastic, offering his essays and music for exploration. I am too braindrained to read anything more this evening, so I opted to compose a bit of music, Cage style.
For a point of reference of how this works on a real piano:
Now… mine..do you have your ear plugs handy?
http://johncage.org/preparedPiano/cpShare.cfm?audio=5167574D-0412-FCF7-6773584B6ADF8EE2.
Disclaimer 2: no – this isn’t supposed to sound pretty, though I think it is rather beautiful in a poetunderconstruction kind of way…
P.S. We did lose beauty today, Dave Brubeck…may the “A” train take him anywhere he wants to call home. RIP ~
poet under construction 
Ok Angela, I think you got the hang of it!
Indeed, we certainly lost beauty today with Dave Brubeck’s passing. RIP
Hi George, thanks for popping over! Now, seeing you’re a music guy, perhaps I should have stated that it
was intentionally non-melodic…
Hey Angela, given that it was a takeoff of Cage, I would not have expected anything different!
🙂 it gives absolute freedom to be non-musical! Now, I read something tonight that made me go back to our
other convo. I am still thinking about this…
Great post! Have you found the Youtube video of the college class performung Cage’s “Imaginary Landscapes No. 4?”I and
I have not found this, Mark. It seems my list is forever growing online…which is not good since this is where I seem to live after the day ends!
I love your Cage piano piece. Had to be great fun doibg it. I’m going to try this later.
I appreciate having a compadre also exploring Cage. Thanks for sharing this.
You’re so right about Dave Brubeck- he will be missed.
Ha! I listen to it now and wonder if I should have gone with first attempt! I just hit record and tried to
piece out a tribute that would be void of harmony. Going to check your blog now to see how you
faired. Per you link notes, hope you got it working! Did you see that you hit ‘shuffle’ to change the tools to key?
By the way- if you like John Cage’s music, have you heard the music of Gyorgy Ligeti? He’s not an aleatoricist but I think you’d dig him.
Pingback: John Cage prepared piano « Peculiarities and Reticences
For some reason, i couldn’t get my Cage piano to play. Still messing with it.
Pingback: Prepared Piano « Peculiarities and Reticences
The site you note is housed at none other than Bard College. Bard also has a fantastic Ashbery site (The Flow Chart Foundation).
Now, as for a Stevens mesostic, I give you Disorder at Key West: https://class.coursera.org/modernpoetry/forum/thread?thread_id=14591&post_id=77765
As for Dave Brubeck: a high Take Five salute. And may he live on in his music for as long as we are. (Cid Corman always comes in handy at times like this, doesn’t he?)