{"id":42,"date":"2010-10-09T18:05:09","date_gmt":"2010-10-09T18:05:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rosewhitemusic.com\/piano\/?p=42"},"modified":"2013-09-02T08:26:24","modified_gmt":"2013-09-02T13:26:24","slug":"john-cage-two-getting-started","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rosewhitemusic.com\/piano\/2010\/10\/09\/john-cage-two-getting-started\/","title":{"rendered":"John Cage: Two<\/i> (getting started)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Frances plays the shakuhachi (Japanese bamboo flute).\u00a0 We thought that it would be fun to play something together, but there isn’t a whole lot of literature for shakuhachi and piano.\u00a0 But we thought that we could adapt John Cage’s Two<\/em>, originally for flute and piano.\u00a0 I’ve started working on it, and thought I’d take a few posts to describe the process of learning the piano part.<\/p>\n

Composed in 1987, Two<\/em> was the first “number piece” that Cage wrote, and the score will look familiar to anyone who’s seen any of those pieces.\u00a0 It consists of ten bits of music with flexible timing indicated.\u00a0 Here’s the first segment:<\/p>\n

\"Sample<\/a><\/p>\n

Cage provides instructions, first about the timing:<\/p>\n

Each part has ten time brackets, nine [of] which are flexible with respect to beginning and ending, and one, the eighth, which is fixed.\u00a0 No sound is to be repeated within a bracket.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So in the example above, the time notations indicate that I can start playing that music at any time in the first 45 seconds of the piece, and I must finish it sometime between 30 seconds and 1:15 into the piece.\u00a0 So I could start at 0:30, play really quickly, and finish at 0:45.\u00a0 Or I could stretch it out, starting at 0:03 and finishing at 1:12.\u00a0 But if I’m taking my time, it will be by playing the sequence of chords more slowly, since I can’t repeat anything.<\/p>\n

The piano part has some further, special instructions:<\/p>\n

In the piano part each ictus in a single staff is to be played in the order given, but can be played in any relation to the sounds in the other staff.\u00a0 Some notes are held from one ictus to the next.\u00a0 A tone in parentheses is not to be played if it is already sounding.\u00a0 One hand may assist the other.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So in the example above, I have to play the four chords in the right hand in that order, and the three chords in the left in that order, but the relationship between the two hands is free:\u00a0 I don’t have to follow the layout shown in the score.\u00a0 I could play all four chords in the right hand followed by the three in the left.\u00a0 I could play the first three chords in each hand simultaneously, followed by the last one in the right hand.\u00a0 And so on:\u00a0 there are lots of possibilities.<\/p>\n

Cage doesn’t say a thing about the durations of each individual chord, so I have to assume that this is up to me, too.\u00a0 Given the flexibility in overall timing with the brackets, I have to be able to spread these chords out over longer periods of time (up to 1:15 total duration).\u00a0 This means that there can be a lot of space between the chords, either sustained resonances (if I hold them for long durations) or silences (if I don’t).\u00a0 In later pieces in this series, it was common for Cage to indicate that durations should be short when the dynamic is louder, and long with the dynamic is softer.\u00a0 I think that he made this instruction because, quite simply, he liked the way that sounded.\u00a0 This being the first of the series, he hadn’t discovered that yet, but I’m going to follow that rule here even though it isn’t explicitly stated.\u00a0 So when I play the example above, the forte<\/em> chords will be very short, with silence around them, but the mezzo-forte<\/em> ones will be more sustained.<\/p>\n

The rest of the instructions are pretty clear.\u00a0 Tied notes are played exactly the way they appear:\u00a0 you hold them between chords.\u00a0 So that first chord in the left hand will be loud and short, except for the A-natural, which I’ll hold until I’m ready to play the next chord.\u00a0 And the parenthetical notes are just a convenience for the performer:\u00a0 they are a reminder that you don’t have to play those notes if they’re already sounding in the other hand.\u00a0 So if the right hand is still playing the opening A-flat when I get to that second chord in the left hand, I can’t play the G-sharp — the parenthesis reminds me of that.<\/p>\n

That’s all the instructions Cage gives.\u00a0 He doesn’t mention dynamics, but they are clearly notated in the usual manner (my assumption is that if a chord has no dynamic marking, the previous one applies, as you would expect).\u00a0 And it almost goes without saying that, as a Cage piece, the flute part is totally independent of the piano part.<\/p>\n

So how do I go about learning a piece like this?\u00a0 There are lots of options here about overall timing and especially the local chord-to-chord timing, both in terms of the rhythm of each hand and the relations between them.\u00a0 How do I decide what to do?\u00a0 I’ve been working on it, and I’ll describe more in my next post.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m starting to work on learning John Cage’s Two<\/i> for piano and flute (Frances is playing the flute part on shakuhachi). I thought I’d take a few posts to describe the process of learning the piano part.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[14,90],"class_list":["post-42","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cage","tag-cage-2","tag-two"],"yoast_head":"\nJohn Cage: Two (getting started) - 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