I look more closely at Satie’s “Socrate” and Cunningham’s “Second Hand” to see how they relate to the compositional decisions that Cage made in “Cheap imitation.”

With John Cage’s music and its carefully planned systems, it is easy to get fixated on the mechanics of chance. But with Cage’s Cheap imitation, it’s quite apparent that chance only goes so far. Everything else in the piece was Cage’s musical choice.

With “Cheap Imitation,” Cage gave a very general description of the system used to compose it. A close reading of the piece itself—the actual results of that system—confirms the accuracy of the rules and also uncovers considerations and choices that Cage didn’t mention.

How did John Cage compose Cheap imitation? We are fortunate to have his own explanation of the system right in the front of the score, and I will go through this description in detail and explain my own understanding of it.

I’ve spent time investigating John Cage’s Cheap imitation. In a new series of posts, I’ll document how he composed it, and also demonstrate how I go about engaging deeply with a piece like this.