John Cage expected (and encouraged) the laughter. He knew what he was doing was visually strange and the sounds were also pretty comical (and still are). He then transforms the audience themselves into an instrument since it is random and unpredictable; something that Cage found essential in audio art. Cage had a big sense of humor. He hated music snobbery.
This is why avant-garde music is absurd (among other reasons). If everything is art, NOTHING is art. When you consider everything music, you are not expanding music, you are KILLING it, because you are making it not different from what is not music. Noise can be part of music (a recording of ambient sounds accompanying a piece, for example). But noise cannot be music itself. We humans have a term, "music" (different from "noise"), for a reason. Not because we are closed minds.
@@TheBoinaman1 In my opinion, which is so much or less important than yours: The thing is..... Art is in the eyes of the beholder. In this case in the ears of the listener. Music does not have to be something that can be described on a paper, shines immediately at you or awakes warm memories, it can be a lot more than that and as usual, have different meanings for different people. The problem here is not the music itself but our interpretation. We adapt to one specific role that music can have and we are not open minded to accept a completely different way of seeing, feeling, hearing and understanding music. We can decide what our ears can hear and at certain point we are the ones who decide if it is art for us or just a guy eating a sandwich. As a conclusion, I´m not saying that I love avant-garde music, or even John Cage´s music,since from my prespective, this music was not created/developed to use "everything" as a state of art but better to search for new ways to question it and question YOU about it. So now.... how is it going to be? Is it it art? or poop?
@@TheBoinaman1 Nah. John Cage already teaches in 4'33" that so much of what we consider music in the first place (and always has been) relies on social cues and our willingness to shift our modes of hearing. Even a neighbor playing what people would call "conventional music" loudly at 3 in the morning would most likely be registered as noise-because you're not willing to listen to it as music, and the social contexts are all wrong. Also, the idea of "avant-garde music" being all about the same thing is not only needlessly dismissive but also ridiculous. That single term covers many different approaches, philosophies, and sounds of music.
This is great. Cage has a wry wit--he's completely serious about his music, but he knows there will be laughter, and he lets that be part of the performance. I notice also--he didn't look at the music once. He had the whole thing memorized.
Look at the way he subtly steps on one foot, then swings his other leg in front of the previous one and puts weight on that foot, only to repeat it again using the first leg, thus creating a sort of... walking effect. BRILLLLLIANT!!!
I once attended a concert of music by John Cage at the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid. The composer was present (ca. 1988-1991). Right before the end of the last piece, the powerful blast of a motorcycle could be heard out in the streets, together with a bell tolling to mark the hour (I think it was 9 p.m.) atop a nearby building (not sure if it was the Banco Central or Banco de España). I spoke to Mr. Cage about those random sounds that were not on the score and he agreed that they truly enhanced the listening experience. More recently (December 2012), also in Madrid, I listened to his Sonates and Interluddes for prepared piano by a young French pianist, Bertrand Chamayou. It was great.
EppcoFan51 Yes, he was nice, easygoing, not very tall (I'm 5' 9" and he was smaller). I rarely ask for autographs but he did sign my concert program. My older daughter (21) freaks out whenever I put on a CD by Cage. She can't get over the strange noises in his music. In my prior comment, it's Sonatas and Interludes. My computer underlines every word because it expects me to be writing in Spanish, so typoes get by.
Michel Angstadt I guess. It must've been a nice experience for you to see the dude and his work. I'm 16 years old, and I love his music too. Why once, I listened to Williams Mix, and I experienced a whole new world of art, sound, silence, and avantgarde creativity, and if John Cage were still alive, or at least recreated from the ashes of the dead, I would've congratulated him for inventing a lot of creative works that still survive today.
Joseph Evans John Cage changed my conception of what is aceptable in the concert hall. I have always been very fussy about unharmonic noise in the concert hall, in other words the noise made by the audience (candy wrappers, women massaging their handbag, people fluttering through the concert program, chattering, heavy breathing, even the beat of a quartz watch behind or beside me). My wife stopped going with me to concerts because she couldn't stand my sign language asking people to keep quiet. Although Cage is best when performed live, I do have a few recordings by him (piano and voice, piano and violin, prepared piano, piano alone, 11 CDs altogether). I envy your age and curiosity (I had never heard of John Cage when I was 16). There's an awful lot to be appreciated out there in the world of culture. This said, besides classical music, contemporary music, jazz, blues and rock and roll, I can also enjoy populat music of the type so often found here on TH-cam, for instance Carly Rae Jepsen, that kind of stuff :)
Just noticed: at 7.00 he flipped the blender switch, and it was supposed to noisily blend the ice cubes in it. But they were too large, and it froze, just hummed. He left it on and after 51 seconds of being jammed, smoke began to come out of the side at 7:51. He noticed and turned it off at 8:00 but not before the cameraman gave the smoke a close up.
My first experience of Cage was in a bar, with people walking in and out while the performers made random yelps and screams and dragged a truck across the floor. It was undoubtedly the funniest and one of the best performances I've ever seen. To me, music's purpose is to elicit an emotional response, and JC's work done right does exactly that
So Cage, basically, displayed every state of matter water can exist in, as well as the most common applications of water in modern life, all in musical form. That is rather brilliant.
I expected a very bad response from the audience, but actually the laughter plus aplause, I think, it was much more that he could expect, I'm delighted with this reactions, and as some other commented here, he made them part of the show. I'm not a fan of his music, but I deeply respect him for his experimentations
I think you couldn't be more right! It takes a genius to recognize a genius. Mr. Cage was all alone that night! Thank you for this wonderful contribution!
OK, This is just unbelievably funny. Especially when he mentions what instruments he uses in this piece. But I give him credit for experimenting with different sounds and I find it quite clever!
I love the gigantic 1960 tape recorder. Possibly an Ampex, from the historic Redwood City, CA, now in Silicon Valley. The Ampex sign has been left standing by the freeway.
Both with and without the video, this performance is art at its "freshest" and most alive. It's wonderful to be reminded how music embarked on the journey which led to the present landscape's artistic choice and diversity. Thank you for posting Mr Cage at his most normal, uncaged.
Great work. I believe that more important than what it sounds it is when it sounds. We don't have to forget that for Cage every sound has equal value. The organization of them transforms this perfomance into a beautiful musical work. Thank you for sharing it with us.
I love the lack unnecessary surface-level flashiness. Seemed more real and raw. If a regular late night show is a movie, this was more like watching a play, just televised. Really cool
I recommend listening to this at 4:50am while you're half asleep- as I just did. It makes you feel like you're submerged in a bathtub, someone is watching a TV sitcom in the next room, there's a little bird outside the window that chirps sporadically, and at one point somebody comes in the bathroom to take a piss. Reminds me of when I used to live at home with my family.
Whoa! IT WAS SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO BEAUTIFUL!!!!!!!!!!!!! AWESOME PERFORMANCE! HOW I WISH THE PEOPLE/AUDIENCE BACK THEN, WATCHING THIS SHOW LIVE...DID NOT LAUGH! IT WAS SO SURREAL, RHYTHMIC, AVANT-GARDE DURING HIS TIME! Love you John Cage!
what an attentive audience! i like this recording of the piece, the laughter and the hiss of the old-school recording equipment make the piece all the more interesting.
From what came through the fuzz, it sounded beautiful. I also couldn't stop silent laughter: a comician, my God! Feeling overwhelmed at my lack of qualification for using the cutting edge studio that is my kitchen, I abandon it and the internet now.
That is precisely what i did. I found it rather appealing that way. Rather than watching him preform, I found that just listening with my eyes closed, I could construct my own idea of what could be happening with this music being played. As if there were music played like theme songs during moments in our lives. I found it to be eerie and dark, even the audiences laughter seemed to fit. I enjoyed it.
His sounds are remarkable. He has a true ear for coordinating sound into a functional piece. I fell in love with Cage after viewing some of the youtubes.
I like this type of music, and if you listen the people laughing, you can add it to the performance, but... this type of music deserves a serious appreciation
Great! Thank you very much for this video. A piece of history that we might slowly start to grasp the honesty of Mr.Cage over 50 years later? He´s so clever.
The laughter (and other sounds) are as much a part of the music as the sounds Cage makes during the performance. This is a greatest thing about his indeterminate works; it allows in all the sounds that occur, thus avoiding the artificial separation that listening to music often entails.
I saw John Cage "in concert" at Beaver College (now Arcadia) in the Philadelphia area. He was a very unusual musician, and it was a quite memorable experience. The audience was sometimes respectful, but sometimes they'd heckle him (probably in some ways deservedly so.) Very cool to see this video on TH-cam.
My appreciation of his work has nothing to do with the innovation, but with the deft skill with which it is executed. Every sound is intentional, in time, and appears effortless. It would be like a single man performing all the parts in a bell choir. The results may not be aesthetically pleasing to everyone, but it is no less impressive for it. If you think perform the equal, I encourage you to do so and post the video. I'd be happy to watch.
a real blessing to see this! so joyful--i agree w/ the post before mine - Cage treated the audience w/ great respect and gave them and us (thank you youtube) a wonderful gift.
This is grand on so many levels, not the least of which is that the union gets in the way of proper performance of the piece! Ha! Very funny, and just brilliant. He always struck me as an incredibly generous and kind man.
I am currently reading the book SILENCE and I especially like the ch. Zen and foward from there. I like it because I am on the quest as well and am trying to mitigate dualities. One can always tell how one is progressing by, as Cage says, how bothered we are now about things and people that really use to pester us before. Happy Zen-ing!!
Music is an art form comprised of sound and/or silence. All music is sound, but not all sound is music. Any sound can be music, though. That's just what I think. Also, before you say what I think you're going to say, this piece does in fact have melody, harmony, and rhythm, in the loosest senses possible.
if you cut off the laughing sound from audience, you really get a modern sound collage piece which is fairly normal nowadays (no matter good or bad). it looks funny because these instruments were used "improperly" only for the sounds they produced in the environment, which arose question: WTF do we have to put this mess on stage? for what? these are sounds we experienced everyday. Cage is often misunderstood, what pieces he PHYSICALLY made doesn't matter, but his CONCEPTS shine.
I will say this in closing about the man love him or hate him--he really gets some of the most liveliest artistic debates started that do not end in a day--if you are into electronica,loops,sampling, avante garde/chance approaches to constructing and de-constructing forms and musical boundaries--and even how one sees Life and Art...then he is indeed one of the pioneers along with Varese! Schoenberg is extremely melodic in this context...
Wow, I've recently discovered John Cage, and I recall an almost identical video with Frank Zappa and a bicycle years later. Have you seen that? Zappa was young and in a suit and behaving almost exactly the same. Ignoring the laughter. Doing his thang. Thanks for posting this. I'll try and find the Zappa video again.
I am totally delighted by this. There are worse things than laughing. Besides, I know many composers who don't know how to use a pressure cooker nearly as well. Fabulous.
i just learned about this man today in piano class, when one of the students chose to play his piece four minuets thirty three secconds. i was one of about 3 who enjoyed the piece, the other students were rather befuddled as to why that was music. the teacher couldn't help but to snicker for all four minuets lol. i look foward to exploring his works, and listning to interviews of his. he has changed my perception of music after just hearing 2 of his pieces =-p. what an amasing man!
i've never seen this before, but it's great. every day events and sounds are music! and the bit with the radios is priceless. too bad this piece isn't performed more often.
The laughter is part of the music: the audience laughs, but why? How is this really so different from any other piece of music? It is a collection of sounds carefully and accurately put together, and yet it is met with laughter. This is the genius behind what John Cage is doing: he is showing us the strangeness of the human condition.
see that's what bums me out. I just got into John Cage. Literally like 5 minutes ago. Immediately I know that he is an interesting, unique character, one that I am completely stunned by, interested in, but can also relate to. He seems like a happy man too, it's just a bummer to see people always talking shit in the comments. Like, why you gotta be such snot-nosed babies? It's John Cage, respect the man.
I like the fact that the Presenter did not patronise him in anyway, even telling him that some people would laugh. most presenters would have taken great delight in making fun of Cage, especially at this time period. Also interesting, is how Cage is not in the least bit Po faced and seems ready to laugh at himself as well. The music is wonderful especially when you just listen to the clip instead of watching to see what he was doing
For much of his life he followed Zen, which concerns itself with mindful listening, seeing, and doing, and he wanted his audiences to be mindful of - to pay full attention to - the sounds (as well as sights and other sensory inputs) around them and to think about their ideas of what constituted "music."
Is interesting to see how people say "free your heads and your minds" but all the comments of people that didnt enjoy this video have been ranked as poor comments and as spam. Well they are free to feel and think anyway they want. I mean, if john cage was alive, he would like to read ALL the coments. Anyway, the man was a genius
Nah he was very inspired by Zen Buddhism. I'd recommend you look into the traditional Japanese Tea Ceremony for a far older example of the music of the sounds of objects.
"I consider laughter preferable to tears." -- What a great human.
John Cage expected (and encouraged) the laughter. He knew what he was doing was visually strange and the sounds were also pretty comical (and still are).
He then transforms the audience themselves into an instrument since it is random and unpredictable; something that Cage found essential in audio art.
Cage had a big sense of humor. He hated music snobbery.
What an awesome comment you covey yours words perfectly to describe the type of man is presume to be❤
Don't forget, Cage regarded all sounds as part of the performance, even the laughter of the audience. They were part of the moment.
The music itself beguns around 5:40, but if you consider everything music, it just happens right now and forever.
Jeferson Torres. A perfect statement, considering that music exists naturally in the mind, heart and soul of everything.
Jeferson Torres: Perhaps one of my favourite comments on TH-cam
This is why avant-garde music is absurd (among other reasons). If everything is art, NOTHING is art. When you consider everything music, you are not expanding music, you are KILLING it, because you are making it not different from what is not music.
Noise can be part of music (a recording of ambient sounds accompanying a piece, for example). But noise cannot be music itself. We humans have a term, "music" (different from "noise"), for a reason. Not because we are closed minds.
@@TheBoinaman1 In my opinion, which is so much or less important than yours: The thing is..... Art is in the eyes of the beholder. In this case in the ears of the listener. Music does not have to be something that can be described on a paper, shines immediately at you or awakes warm memories, it can be a lot more than that and as usual, have different meanings for different people. The problem here is not the music itself but our interpretation. We adapt to one specific role that music can have and we are not open minded to accept a completely different way of seeing, feeling, hearing and understanding music.
We can decide what our ears can hear and at certain point we are the ones who decide if it is art for us or just a guy eating a sandwich. As a conclusion, I´m not saying that I love avant-garde music, or even John Cage´s music,since from my prespective, this music was not created/developed to use "everything" as a state of art but better to search for new ways to question it and question YOU about it. So now.... how is it going to be? Is it it art? or poop?
@@TheBoinaman1 Nah. John Cage already teaches in 4'33" that so much of what we consider music in the first place (and always has been) relies on social cues and our willingness to shift our modes of hearing. Even a neighbor playing what people would call "conventional music" loudly at 3 in the morning would most likely be registered as noise-because you're not willing to listen to it as music, and the social contexts are all wrong.
Also, the idea of "avant-garde music" being all about the same thing is not only needlessly dismissive but also ridiculous. That single term covers many different approaches, philosophies, and sounds of music.
This is great. Cage has a wry wit--he's completely serious about his music, but he knows there will be laughter, and he lets that be part of the performance. I notice also--he didn't look at the music once. He had the whole thing memorized.
He gets a vigorous round of applause, no hecklers and no booing. 👍
Cage was an absolute delight to work with, and I was highly privileged to be among those who have.
wowy!
Look at the way he subtly steps on one foot, then swings his other leg in front of the previous one and puts weight on that foot, only to repeat it again using the first leg, thus creating a sort of... walking effect. BRILLLLLIANT!!!
I once attended a concert of music by John Cage at the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid. The composer was present (ca. 1988-1991). Right before the end of the last piece, the powerful blast of a motorcycle could be heard out in the streets, together with a bell tolling to mark the hour (I think it was 9 p.m.) atop a nearby building (not sure if it was the Banco Central or Banco de España). I spoke to Mr. Cage about those random sounds that were not on the score and he agreed that they truly enhanced the listening experience. More recently (December 2012), also in Madrid, I listened to his Sonates and Interluddes for prepared piano by a young French pianist, Bertrand Chamayou. It was great.
Was he nice? How was it meeting him?
EppcoFan51 Yes, he was nice, easygoing, not very tall (I'm 5' 9" and he was smaller). I rarely ask for autographs but he did sign my concert program. My older daughter (21) freaks out whenever I put on a CD by Cage. She can't get over the strange noises in his music. In my prior comment, it's Sonatas and Interludes. My computer underlines every word because it expects me to be writing in Spanish, so typoes get by.
Michel Angstadt I guess. It must've been a nice experience for you to see the dude and his work. I'm 16 years old, and I love his music too. Why once, I listened to Williams Mix, and I experienced a whole new world of art, sound, silence, and avantgarde creativity, and if John Cage were still alive, or at least recreated from the ashes of the dead, I would've congratulated him for inventing a lot of creative works that still survive today.
Joseph Evans John Cage changed my conception of what is aceptable in the concert hall. I have always been very fussy about unharmonic noise in the concert hall, in other words the noise made by the audience (candy wrappers, women massaging their handbag, people fluttering through the concert program, chattering, heavy breathing, even the beat of a quartz watch behind or beside me). My wife stopped going with me to concerts because she couldn't stand my sign language asking people to keep quiet. Although Cage is best when performed live, I do have a few recordings by him (piano and voice, piano and violin, prepared piano, piano alone, 11 CDs altogether). I envy your age and curiosity (I had never heard of John Cage when I was 16). There's an awful lot to be appreciated out there in the world of culture. This said, besides classical music, contemporary music, jazz, blues and rock and roll, I can also enjoy populat music of the type so often found here on TH-cam, for instance Carly Rae Jepsen, that kind of stuff :)
Joseph Evans "Acceptable" in the concert hall. My spell check underscores everything I write in English, making it hard for me to notice typoes.
Cage was born 100 years ago today. This certainly made me smile!
Just noticed: at 7.00 he flipped the blender switch, and it was supposed to noisily blend the ice cubes in it. But they were too large, and it froze, just hummed. He left it on and after 51 seconds of being jammed, smoke began to come out of the side at 7:51. He noticed and turned it off at 8:00 but not before the cameraman gave the smoke a close up.
And it works brilliantly!
@@funnyusername8635 My farts are brilliant music too. Wanna buy the record?
My first experience of Cage was in a bar, with people walking in and out while the performers made random yelps and screams and dragged a truck across the floor. It was undoubtedly the funniest and one of the best performances I've ever seen.
To me, music's purpose is to elicit an emotional response, and JC's work done right does exactly that
So Cage, basically, displayed every state of matter water can exist in, as well as the most common applications of water in modern life, all in musical form. That is rather brilliant.
Dude... you are out of your mind
DHMO moment
"Musical form."
I love the fact that he encourages hearing everyday sounds as music. It's inspirational for both musicians and listeners alike.
I expected a very bad response from the audience, but actually the laughter plus aplause, I think, it was much more that he could expect, I'm delighted with this reactions, and as some other commented here, he made them part of the show. I'm not a fan of his music, but I deeply respect him for his experimentations
I think you couldn't be more right! It takes a genius to recognize a genius. Mr. Cage was all alone that night! Thank you for this wonderful contribution!
OK, This is just unbelievably funny. Especially when he mentions what instruments he uses in this piece. But I give him credit for experimenting with different sounds and I find it quite clever!
I love the gigantic 1960 tape recorder. Possibly an Ampex, from the historic Redwood City, CA, now in Silicon Valley. The Ampex sign has been left standing by the freeway.
Both with and without the video, this performance is art at its "freshest" and most alive. It's wonderful to be reminded how music embarked on the journey which led to the present landscape's artistic choice and diversity. Thank you for posting Mr Cage at his most normal, uncaged.
I'm here because of my modules. Who's with me?
me too😂😌
Ehem baka naman
Samee
@@shainemariearasa6245 haha0
@@aaronmagno4656 ang hirap Lalo nat bukas na namin to i pass😢
Great work. I believe that more important than what it sounds it is when it sounds. We don't have to forget that for Cage every sound has equal value. The organization of them transforms this perfomance into a beautiful musical work. Thank you for sharing it with us.
"In the 50s, for one brief moment--six weeks, maybe--nobody understood art. That's why it all happened." (Morton Feldman)
"you needn't call it music if the term shocks you" - john cage
I love the lack unnecessary surface-level flashiness. Seemed more real and raw. If a regular late night show is a movie, this was more like watching a play, just televised. Really cool
I recommend listening to this at 4:50am while you're half asleep- as I just did. It makes you feel like you're submerged in a bathtub, someone is watching a TV sitcom in the next room, there's a little bird outside the window that chirps sporadically, and at one point somebody comes in the bathroom to take a piss. Reminds me of when I used to live at home with my family.
Audiences haven't changed much -- instead of laughter, they chatter.
Thank you for posting this.
This is going to be stuck in my head all day.
The originality is off the charts. arf
someone told me my work was like john cage today and wow, what a compliment, he is amazing
I'm impressed this has gotten over 375k views! Few people are patient and open minded enough to sit through 9 minutes of what this has to offer.
I appreciate the fact he has the humility not to be phased by the audience laughing at what he considers a serious piece of music.
Whoa! IT WAS SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO BEAUTIFUL!!!!!!!!!!!!! AWESOME PERFORMANCE! HOW I WISH THE PEOPLE/AUDIENCE BACK THEN, WATCHING THIS SHOW LIVE...DID NOT LAUGH! IT WAS SO SURREAL, RHYTHMIC, AVANT-GARDE DURING HIS TIME!
Love you John Cage!
How could anyone not love John Cage, his performances are so witty, humorous and yet very artistic in the meaning. I totally agree with Jaydoggy531
what an attentive audience! i like this recording of the piece, the laughter and the hiss of the old-school recording equipment make the piece all the more interesting.
Amazing that something like this was broadcast on 'regular' tv - and that we can now watch it on TH-cam! Many thanks for sharing, holotone!
From what came through the fuzz, it sounded beautiful. I also couldn't stop silent laughter: a comician, my God! Feeling overwhelmed at my lack of qualification for using the cutting edge studio that is my kitchen, I abandon it and the internet now.
The laughter actually gives it a more horrifying feel. It's absolutely absurd and wonderful.
This is art. Close your eyes and listen to it after watching it and you'll see why.
That is precisely what i did. I found it rather appealing that way. Rather than watching him preform, I found that just listening with my eyes closed, I could construct my own idea of what could be happening with this music being played. As if there were music played like theme songs during moments in our lives. I found it to be eerie and dark, even the audiences laughter seemed to fit. I enjoyed it.
Interesting stuff. Sounds like a horror movie soundtrack... it even sounds like early industrial (if you take out the laughing).
I love how he just plays one random dominant seventh chord at 7:00 and then hits the piano with the fallboard.
It literally says "Play Dominant 7th chord" and then "Slam Lid" or something in the score... Three even is a score video of it on TH-cam
What kind of cadence is that?
@@segmentsAndCurves Cage-dence.
@@Elintasokas It's 1AM.
I desperately need this.
Thanks for reminding me to go to sleep.
the fact that this made it onto post-war American national television is astounding
Amazing - thankyou so much for uploading this. Wow. What a moment .
His sounds are remarkable. He has a true ear for coordinating sound into a functional piece. I fell in love with Cage after viewing some of the youtubes.
I like this type of music, and if you listen the people laughing, you can add it to the performance, but... this type of music deserves a serious appreciation
I studied with John cage. Brilliant, philosophical, a giant of modern music, a sincerely nice and good person: read his books!!!
Life is music to those who listen.
Holy carp! that is a good philosophy
The auidence laughter is another sound that becomes part of the piece. Amazing insight to Cage
I think music is supposed to stimulate the listeners mind...and this is exactly what Cage has achieved with this.
For some reason I have an overwhelming urge to go buy a pack of Winston's. Huh.
Great! Thank you very much for this video.
A piece of history that we might slowly start to grasp the honesty of Mr.Cage over 50 years later? He´s so clever.
Thank you so much for posting this. 5 starts to the brilliant Mr. Cage - No starts for unions.
Absolutely wonderful
i wish i could hear this without the laughter
I think Cage "included" the laughter in the piece
***** I agree! But the only reason why I want to hear it without laughter is because the piece is hard to hear :/
i think if he consciously included the laughter then he's a genius but it really blends in perfectly..
Oh, no, whatever happens works.
The laughter (and other sounds) are as much a part of the music as the sounds Cage makes during the performance. This is a greatest thing about his indeterminate works; it allows in all the sounds that occur, thus avoiding the artificial separation that listening to music often entails.
laughter is found sonic art that is timed and after watching this it will never sound the same to me ever again.
I saw John Cage "in concert" at Beaver College (now Arcadia) in the Philadelphia area. He was a very unusual musician, and it was a quite memorable experience. The audience was sometimes respectful, but sometimes they'd heckle him (probably in some ways deservedly so.) Very cool to see this video on TH-cam.
I enjoyed this, it's obvious that this art form has really taken strides over the last 47 years.
I'll be whistling this for a while. Been thinking about playing it sometime.
lmao stolen
I love Cage so much.
My appreciation of his work has nothing to do with the innovation, but with the deft skill with which it is executed. Every sound is intentional, in time, and appears effortless. It would be like a single man performing all the parts in a bell choir. The results may not be aesthetically pleasing to everyone, but it is no less impressive for it.
If you think perform the equal, I encourage you to do so and post the video. I'd be happy to watch.
a real blessing to see this! so joyful--i agree w/ the post before mine - Cage treated the audience w/ great respect and gave them and us (thank you youtube) a wonderful gift.
Hats off to canceling the game and making this about the composition! 💕🙏🏻
This is grand on so many levels, not the least of which is that the union gets in the way of proper performance of the piece! Ha! Very funny, and just brilliant. He always struck me as an incredibly generous and kind man.
I am currently reading the book SILENCE and I especially like the ch. Zen and foward from there. I like it because I am on the quest as well and am trying to mitigate dualities. One can always tell how one is progressing by, as Cage says, how bothered we are now about things and people that really use to pester us before. Happy Zen-ing!!
Music is an art form comprised of sound and/or silence. All music is sound, but not all sound is music. Any sound can be music, though. That's just what I think.
Also, before you say what I think you're going to say, this piece does in fact have melody, harmony, and rhythm, in the loosest senses possible.
Bravo John, bis! bis!
He had quite a flair for performance.
no doubt, the coolest thing i've seen on youtube yet.
I'm kinda dissapointed that the audience took the possible out of him. He's pretty talented. Extremely ahead of his time.
if you cut off the laughing sound from audience, you really get a modern sound collage piece which is fairly normal nowadays (no matter good or bad).
it looks funny because these instruments were used "improperly" only for the sounds they produced in the environment, which arose question: WTF do we have to put this mess on stage? for what? these are sounds we experienced everyday.
Cage is often misunderstood, what pieces he PHYSICALLY made doesn't matter, but his CONCEPTS shine.
awesome the goose flute so great ...l.o.l.!
Asmr?
But my friend as John Cage said " The laughter is part of the performance".
@@匚尺丂乇-k3v Yes
when such an artist has got this sense of autohirony, we're quite in heaven!!!
I will say this in closing about the man love him or hate him--he really gets some of the most liveliest artistic debates started that do not end in a day--if you are into electronica,loops,sampling, avante garde/chance approaches to constructing and de-constructing forms and musical boundaries--and even how one sees Life and Art...then he is indeed one of the pioneers along with Varese! Schoenberg is extremely melodic in this context...
That was BEAUTIFUL!!! I feel so fortunate to have heard him lecture @ Harvard in the late 1980s.
he changed the way we discover sounds and produce music. A genuis.
Great video thank you!!!! An amazing piece of history documented here.
Wow, I've recently discovered John Cage, and I recall an almost identical video with Frank Zappa and a bicycle years later. Have you seen that? Zappa was young and in a suit and behaving almost exactly the same. Ignoring the laughter. Doing his thang. Thanks for posting this. I'll try and find the Zappa video again.
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I am totally delighted by this. There are worse things than laughing. Besides, I know many composers who don't know how to use a pressure cooker nearly as well. Fabulous.
i just learned about this man today in piano class, when one of the students chose to play his piece four minuets thirty three secconds. i was one of about 3 who enjoyed the piece, the other students were rather befuddled as to why that was music. the teacher couldn't help but to snicker for all four minuets lol.
i look foward to exploring his works, and listning to interviews of his. he has changed my perception of music after just hearing 2 of his pieces =-p. what an amasing man!
i've never seen this before, but it's great. every day events and sounds are music! and the bit with the radios is priceless. too bad this piece isn't performed more often.
Thanks for sharing this awesome video!
It was amusing & inspiring at the same time :)
I'm just sad that I can't really hear the duck...
I was expecting him to walk on water as the title suggests
The laughter is part of the music: the audience laughs, but why? How is this really so different from any other piece of music? It is a collection of sounds carefully and accurately put together, and yet it is met with laughter. This is the genius behind what John Cage is doing: he is showing us the strangeness of the human condition.
"Real music" follows the rules of mathematic. You remove math from music and you have noise, exactly what we have here.
most elegantly done, Mr. Cage!
I love this. The whole concept and the look of John Cage himself doing the water walk.
Excellent! Thank you so much for posting this!
see that's what bums me out.
I just got into John Cage. Literally like 5 minutes ago. Immediately I know that he is an interesting, unique character, one that I am completely stunned by, interested in, but can also relate to. He seems like a happy man too, it's just a bummer to see people always talking shit in the comments. Like, why you gotta be such snot-nosed babies? It's John Cage, respect the man.
i bet the audience laughed so hard they had tears in their eyes, that makes it a part of the water walk
This is music. It has a purpose, it is expressive, and it is organized sound.
Big thank you for sharing!
I loved it!
Claude
Someone told me I have to analyze this in my music theory class this year
John Gerling Did you?
I'm supposed to be analyzing this now so Im searching for comments!! "list and explain THREE REASONS why this should rightfully be considered music."
Happy 100th Anniversary, Master JC !
Wow, a great man, doing a serious job and he knows he is doing a serious job, still bearing the laughter ...
I'm so addicted to this!
Charming man, brilliant thinker, a delight.
I like the fact that the Presenter did not patronise him in anyway, even telling him that some people would laugh. most presenters would have taken great delight in making fun of Cage, especially at this time period. Also interesting, is how Cage is not in the least bit Po faced and seems ready to laugh at himself as well.
The music is wonderful especially when you just listen to the clip instead of watching to see what he was doing
I was thinking that exact same thing all the way through this. They gave up the format of the game show just to let him play. unbelievable.
For much of his life he followed Zen, which concerns itself with mindful listening, seeing, and doing, and he wanted his audiences to be mindful of - to pay full attention to - the sounds (as well as sights and other sensory inputs) around them and to think about their ideas of what constituted "music."
Is interesting to see how people say "free your heads and your minds" but all the comments of people that didnt enjoy this video have been ranked as poor comments and as spam. Well they are free to feel and think anyway they want. I mean, if john cage was alive, he would like to read ALL the coments.
Anyway, the man was a genius
This is one of the most Avant Garde shit i've ever heard..
Mesmerizing
The father of ASMR? Anyone...?
Feels like the composition could also work as horror music; and the audience laughing can also add kind of a dark vibe.
Nah he was very inspired by Zen Buddhism. I'd recommend you look into the traditional Japanese Tea Ceremony for a far older example of the music of the sounds of objects.
ASMR refers to a physical response. I know it's become ubiquitous for sounds based content... but it's like saying he invented a feeling.
LMAO