What is your silent piece?
Each of us has an image of John Cage’s silent piece, an idea—or many ideas—of what he created, why he created it, and what it means. This series will be my story of Cage’s silent piece—or silent pieces, since there are four of them.
Miss Gainey died last month at ninety-five
My first piano teacher was Ann D. Gainey. This is the story of how we met, how she introduced me to music, and how she became a part of our family. Nearly a half a century ago, in 1967, I was in second grade at Rock Springs Elementary School in Atlanta. My older brother went to […]
Triadic memory 4: Rhythms and structures
Triadic memories, like all late Feldman, is a series of repeated patterns, musical images that are extended in time by repetition. In some pieces these repetitions are of larger chunks of music, with a system, set of systems, or even pages of music reappearing, often with permutations. I’ve always thought of these larger-scale repetitions in terms of the whole pattern: pitch and rhythm together. Playing through Triadic memories, I’ve become aware of them rhythmically, repeating even as the pitches are moved around.
Triadic memory #3: A figure in memory
There is a figure that appears about a third of the way into Triadic memories. It catches my attention, wakes me up: it is a signal that something is changing. Where are we going now? And haven’t I heard this before somewhere?
How I happened upon the Happenings
For me, there is a more personal history of the Radio Happenings: the story of how they came to light and were preserved. It all happened because of procrastination and the pre-Internet digital social world of Bulletin Board Services in New York City. It was a rare musicological adventure.
What happened at the Happenings
In this installment of my series on the Cage-Feldman “Radio happenings”, I describe where Cage and Feldman were in their lives at the time of the recordings, and present highlights of their conversations.
How the Happenings happened
The history of how the Cage/Feldman “Radio Happenings” came to be recorded at WBAI, under the direction of Ann McMillan
The Happenings keep happening
Introducing a series of posts telling the missing story of the Cage/Feldman “Radio Happenings” of 1966-67, a series of broadcasts that has been getting more and more attention on the web.
A question about rhythm in Triadic Memories
The manuscript score and early performances reveal an alternative interpretation of a persistent rhythm in Triadic Memories
Hand-made music: Feldman’s scores
To start on Feldman’s “Triadic memories”, I knew I needed to get a new copy of the score, but what I really wanted was a facsimile of the manuscript. Here’s how to get these scores and why I prefer them to the newer computer-typeset ones.