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FROM EXPERIMENTAL MUSIC TO MUSICAL EXPERIMENT
FRANK X. MAUCERI
Wx ITH ITS ADOPTION of modern technology, music enters new and
complex relationships with the society to which it belongs.
Both
specialized scientific research and the economy of mass media
become directly entangled with the practice of music composition.
As a way of analyzing these new relationships, I want to examine
the use of the word "experimental" with regard to music: how this
term is used by composers and critics; how it sets up and dissolves
historical opposition and catego- ries; how it defines music's use
of technology and technology's use of music.
My goal in excavating the oppositions implicit in the category
"experi- mental music" is not to discredit criticism, musicology,
or the unique contributions of America's innovative composers. Like
any historical category, this one is informed by a social agenda.
The oppositions it sets
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up serve a particular social perspective. When a term like
"experimental" is deployed as a category it not only creates
implicit oppositions but it also takes sides, it privileges and
aligns particular differences. My goal is to examine some of those
differences while tracing the motivations and effects of this word,
"experimental."
EXPERIMENT AS GENRE
The concept of experimental music is less contentious today than
it was in the late 1950s, when electronic music was establishing
itself as the van- guard of compositional practice. Often,
"experimental music" generically referred to the contemporary
avant-garde or to electronic music. In response, Heinz-Klaus
Meztger included experimental music among the terms he called
"abortive concepts," terms which "do not grasp their subject" but
enact a facile identification as a way to evade serious exami-
nation of the subject (Metzger 1959, 21).
Metzger's criticism would hold today. Though its meaning has
changed, "experimental music" is still often used to loosely
designate a genre of works whose common attributes are not denoted
by that label. It is instructive to contrast the deprecating use of
this label by music critics, as noticed by Metzger in 1959, with
the favorable use of the term in recent reference works.
The New Grove Dictionary of American Music [a.k.a. NGA] defines
experimental music as follows:
A tradition of 20th-century musical practice (largely but not
exclu- sively American), the fundamental characteristic of which is
a con- tinuing search for radically new modes of composition, music
making, and musical understanding. . . . Although experimental
music is related to "conventional" contemporary music, the term is
used for a bolder, more individualistic, eccentric, and less highly
crafted kind of musical exploration. (Hitchcock and Sadie 1986,
s.v. "Experimental Music" by John Rockwell)
The NGA entry traces this "tradition" through its exemplars: the
work of Charles Ives, Carl Ruggles, Edgard Varese, John Cage, David
Tudor, and Earl Brown; tuning innovations by Harry Partch and Lou
Harrison; the pattern music of Terry Riley, Philip Glass and Steve
Reich; popular and media-influenced music of Brian Eno and Laurie
Anderson. Of the composers mentioned in the dictionary entry, only
Cage referred to the music he composed as experimental and he
explicitly rejected the kind of
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From Experimental Music to Musical Experiment
definition offered above. It is doubtful that many of the
composers listed would themselves identify with the category as
described.
Neither the critics nor the NGA entry attempt to designate a
charac- teristic function or methodology; they are not trying to
distinguish music that conducts an experiment. Instead, they are
trying to define some- thing like a style of music making, a
general category that functions in opposition to another general
category, "classical" music. The "radically new" is opposed to the
old. The word "experimental" is chosen in order to characterize the
nature of that opposition.
One way the word accomplishes this is by the suggestion that
"experi- mental" works are in a some sense unfinished, merely trial
runs of untested materials and methods. To the critics, according
to Metzger, "'experimental music' means music which is still in
baby shoes and which has still to become something genuine"
(Metzger 1959, 27). It implies that the composers have not mastered
their methods as have composers of the tradition; they are more
tinkerers or mad scientists than accom- plished artists. The NGA
article corroborates this impression but puts a positive spin on
it. The pieces are "less highly crafted" but that goes along with
their "bolder" and "more individualistic" conception. What remains
unexamined in both cases are the conditions for what constitutes
the genuine, craft, or finish. In the opposition set up by the
category "experimental," these attributes are clearly positioned on
the side of the old against the new.
The conservative music criticism of the 1950s to which Metzger
refers used the term "experimental" to suggest an analogy between
the new music and science. A survey of Die Reihe or Perspectives of
New Music is sufficient to note that in some respects new music
invites such an analogy; language and theory borrowed from the
sciences is a mainstay of discourse among composers. But criticism
has long complained of vanguard music as dehumanized, and
unnatural. "Experimental," along with adjectives like "antiseptic"
and "clinical," contribute to this tradi- tion of criticism.
Metzger places the use of "experimental" in the com- pany of terms
such as "laboratory music" and "engineers' music" (Metzger 1959,
21). These modifiers suggest that this music substitutes artificial
procedures and means for the immediacy of natural expression found
in traditional concert music.
Note that an opposition between science and nature is mapped
onto an opposition between vanguard concert music and traditional
concert music. The "human" is positioned on the side of nature and
tradition, the side with which this type of criticism clearly
identifies. The "human" and the "natural" are constructed as
normative and as representatives of the tradition. The "artificial"
is associated with the new forces of musical production manifested
by the vanguard.
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The center of the science/nature opposition involves a struggle
over technology. Just as modern technology causes upheaval in
social relations and values (traditions) so the new music
represents the same menace. New musical techniques threaten to
displace not only the expressive order but also the values and
institutions of the tradition. The performer, the orchestra, the
concert hall, and even the music critic were (and are still)
threatened by the appearance of new techniques.
Interestingly, recording and mass-media technologies are not
addressed by opposing science to nature. Surely, these present a
greater threat to the tradition than a marginal vanguard. The
alienation that is invoked when speaking of a dehumanized music has
more to do with our alienation in the face of commodity forms, a
consequence of mass pro- duction and mass media, than with our
detachment from specialized practices like scientific research. The
category, "experimental music" con- structs a weak antagonist
against which music criticism can authenticate a waning
tradition.
In the 1960s, "experimental music" began to be used to set up
quite different oppositions than the ones discussed above. Today,
"experimen- tal music" is characterized as radically new but it is
also posited as an his- torical category, a tradition in its own
right.1 But as pointed out by art critic Harold Rosenberg, "The new
cannot become a tradition without giving rise to unique
contradictions, myths, absurdities" (Rosenberg 1959, 9). The irony
of this historical category is the attempt to construct a genre out
of work that by its own definition is radically different and
highly individualistic.
The foremost contradiction of the NGA entry is found in the
collec- tion of composers; the list represents a wide variety of
methods, influ- ences, and sensibilities. The most interesting
aspect of the list is the omissions. The examples given notably
exclude any major figure from the European avant-garde. Presumably,
the contributions of Stockhausen, Schaeffer, Boulez, Xenakis, and
Pousseur were not as bold, as individual- istic, as eccentric, as
their American colleagues. The NGA entry charac- terizes
"experimental music" as a largely American tradition.2 In this
regard the NGA follows Michael Nyman's book Experimental Music.
Nyman defines this category primarily in contrast to the European
avant- garde:
I shall make an attempt to isolate and identify what
experimental music is, and what distinguishes it from music of such
avant-garde composers as Boulez, Kagel, Xenakis, . . . which is
conceived and executed along the well-trodden but sanctified path
of post- Renaissance tradition. (Nyman 1974, 2)
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meios de massa na cultura do que a falta de acesso prticas
especializadas artsticas/cientficas/acadmicas.
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From Experimental Music to Musical Experiment
Nyman attempts to exclude the European avant-garde by
associating it with the tradition of European concert music.
"Experimental music" not only places the new in opposition to the
old, but also the new world in opposition to the old world.
The motivations and effects of this opposition can be traced to
cul- tural, technical, and institutional differences that are
implicit in the dis- tinction between European and American
vanguards. First, the category "experimental music" attempts to
construct a tradition of original Amer- ican art music that aspires
to the kind of cultural authority that European concert music
enjoys. The category asserts a cultural difference against a
background of European culture's powerful influence and
authority.
The avant-garde is an effective area in which to stake such a
claim. Avant-garde movements in the twentieth century have been
character- ized by both an expressed antagonism toward tradition
and an emphasis on originality. "Experimental music" claims that
America is in a privi- leged position from which to originate a
vanguard music by virtue of its apparent distance from European
culture's sphere of influence. Cage was asked by a Dutch musician
about the difficulty of writing music in Amer- ica, "for you are so
far from the centers of tradition." Cage replied: "It must be very
difficult for you in Europe to write music, for you are so close to
the centers of tradition" (Cage 1973, 73).
What is silently passed over is the fact that the avant-garde
gesture of rejecting tradition is a European one. Most explicit and
strident was the Italian Futurists' call to forget cultural history
and to destroy cultural institutions. Originality as a criteria of
authenticity is borrowed from European vanguard art. This is
arguably not the case for Ives and Ruggles, but Varese was
influenced by the Futurists. John Cage acknowl- edges the influence
of both Futurism (Russolo) and Dada (Satie, Duchamp) on
experimental music. And certainly the "experimental" composers that
followed Cage were aware of the importance of Europe's artistic
avant-garde.
In any case, the issue is not whether these composers'
innovations were motivated by a European ideal. The important point
is that the category "experimental music" is motivated by a
European ideal. The category draws on the "discourse of
originality" that characterizes art theory and criticism and has
its roots in the European avant-garde (Krauss 1985, 157). The
uniquely American "experimentalism" is legitimated as an artistic
category according to the terms of European culture; it tries to
"up the ante" on European avant-gardism by claiming a more radical
originality.
The second difference between experimental music and the
European avant-garde is one of technique. Almost all of the
European vanguard composers took serial (twelve-tone) technique as
their starting point.
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None of the American "experimental" composers adopted serialism
as a model.
Also important to the technical developments in Europe was the
influ- ence of scientific theory, particularly physics and
information theory. Reflecting these technical developments was a
prolific theoretical dis- course modeled on scientific writing. The
journal Die Reihe exemplified the adoption of terminology borrowed
from the sciences as well as an emphasis on formalist analysis.
However, "experimental music" as an American tradition refers not
to scientific practice but more to the mythology of American
ingenuity and invention (e.g. Franklin, Bell, Edison). In this
context, regarding Cage, Schoenberg remarked: "He is not a
composer, but an inventor-of genius" (Yates 1967, 243-44).
"Experimental" composers did not write analyses of their work or
each others' work, with the exception of Cage whose prose may be
considered theoretical but hardly scientific. Journals like
Cowell's New Music,3 or Source (1967-72) were devoted to publishing
scores or documenting work rather than fostering analysis.
Finally, "experimental music" marks a difference between
American and European vanguards in their base of institutional
support. Not only does it operate outside of the traditional
musical forms and techniques, but also outside of the traditional
forms of patronage:
Some writers ... drew a useful distinction between the
avant-garde, working within the tradition and within accepted
channels of communication (opera houses, orchestral concerts,
universities, broadcasting corporations, record companies), and
experimental composers, who preferred to work in other ways.
(Griffiths 1986, s.v. "Experimental Music")
It is debatable that this difference is entirely one of
preference; Amer- ica's cultural life is more exposed to market
forces and does not receive the state support typical of European
orchestras, opera companies, and radio stations. Those institutions
in the U.S. did not support an avant- garde for fear of losing
their revenues along with their audience. Univer- sities became a
haven for composers in the U.S., but the composers con- sidered
"experimental" were exactly those not included in academic music
departments. Patronage is an important enough issue to merit a
subheading in the NGA entry. Experimental music received much of
its support from private donations and from the dance and visual
arts com- munity. It developed its own venues as well as taking
advantage of muse- ums and gallery spaces.
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From Experimental Music to Musical Experiment
Central to "experimental music" as an historical category is its
claim to outsider status. The struggling (Bohemian) artist, a
traditionally roman- tic European figure, is recast in the mold of
American rugged individual- ism. Ives, the entrepreneur, pays for
the performance of his work from his business earnings. Cage
peddles his wares, first in the L.A. suburbs, and then to rich
patrons like Peggy Guggenheim.
The American universities reproduced the European alignment of
cul- tural tradition, serial/scientific paradigms, and
institutional support. First, the academy was strongly grounded in
European tradition. This was especially true after the influx of
European composers (Schoenberg, Krenek, Milhaud, Hindemith) and
musicologists (Willi Apel, Curt Sachs, Leo Schrade, Paul Henry
Lang) during World War II. Second, composi- tion in the
universities was aligned with both serial technique (Sessions,
Babbitt, Wuorinen) and with a theoretical discourse modeled on the
sciences. Perspectives of New Music, largely representing the
academic vanguard, continued the formalist analytic initiated by
Die Reihe and, at one time, even criticized that journal for not
being rigorous in its use of scientific terminology and theory
(Kerman 1985, 102). Finally, new music in the United States gained
most of its institutional support and cultural legitimacy within
the universities.
In many respects, the category "experimental music" marks a more
immediate struggle against the authority of the academy than it
does against the authority of European music. Curiously, the period
when this category began to be deployed coincides with the
introduction of "experimental" composers into the universities.4
The new category was used as a way to legitimate these composers
and, thus, to bring them into the academic fold. After all, the
academy itself promulgated the category; musicology sanctioned
"experimental music" as an American tradition.
The American avant-garde outside of the academy presented a
greater challenge to the musical status quo than it would inside.
It developed new audiences, new venues, new techniques, and new
sensibilities. After nominal acceptance into the universities and
the established forums, crit- ics could begin to speak of the
domestication or even the death of the avant-garde in spite of
continued activity both inside and outside of the academy.
EXPERIMENT AS TECHNIQUE
For scientific practice, "experiment" does not refer to a
historical or stylistic category. Experiment is a technique by
which evidence is gathered in support of a theory. It is a method
that tests hypotheses. The
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hypothesis is a prediction based on theory; the theory, a set of
formal generalizations regarding a specified range of phenomena. By
testing the prediction, the experiment aims to confirm the
theory.
Benjamin Boretz distinguishes the composer from the scientist,
claim- ing that science strives to make each observed event part of
a data set that supports a general conception whereas composition
works to distinguish events and to multiply their distinctions in
contradiction to any general conception. "[T]o learn to hear a
unique thing as a categorical thing is a net loss for musical
experience" (Boretz 1977, 11). The composer desires that the
musical phenomenon be so experientially rich as to differentiate
itself and resist generalizations.
Scientific theory is manifested in the operating principles of
its scien- tific apparatus, in the methods used, and in the
expectations scientists exercise in the interpretation of data.
Musical theory likewise manifests itself in equipment, methods, and
in expectations. Scientific experiment seeks to confirm its
underlying theory but compositional experiment seeks to
differentiate events, to go beyond the generalizations inherent in
theory. The composed experiment is designed to transcend its
verifica- tion of the methods used, to exceed its gestural,
semiotic, or formal func- tioning. It preserves itself as
phenomenal, an experience pregnant with interpretive and affective
possibility. The question remains as to whether musical methods can
be "experimental," especially given that its purposes are at odds
with those of scientific methods.
EXPERIMENT AS TECHNOLOGY
Hiller and Isaacson adopt the scientific meaning of the
experiment in reference to the computer-music research described in
their book, Exper- imental Music (1959). Hiller lists a chronology
of experiments related to composing the Illiac Suite for String
Quartet:.
1. To build up an elementary technique of polyphonic writing, a
simplified version of first-species counterpoint was used.
2. To realize cantus firmus settings, academically correct, in
strict first species counterpoint.
3. "[T]o produce novel musical structures in a more contemporary
style and to code musical elements such as rhythm and
dynamics."
4. "[T]o produce radically different species of music based upon
fundamental new techniques of musical analysis." (Hiller and
Isaacson 1959, 4)
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From Experimental Music to Musical Experiment
The first two experiments make a prediction regarding the
applicability of computer technique to problems of established
musical technique. Hiller and Isaacson performed tests in which
computer programs were called upon to solve problems in modal
counterpoint. The desired outcome of these tests would not be
novelty or originality but the predicted adher- ence to
well-defined rules.
The third and fourth experiments seem to contradict the goals of
sci- entific experiment. The third experiment proposes to "produce
novel musical structures." This does not appear to be a simple case
of theory testing and confirmation. What is meant by "in a
contemporary style"? If the output is "in a style," does that
indicate that it must conform to some recognizable stylistic norms?
If the output was in an "old style," that would clearly fail the
test by not being contemporary, but it is unclear what other
criteria would constitute failure or success. The fourth experi-
ment also raises questions as to whether this is an experiment in
the sci- entific sense. It is conceivable that the experiment is
set up to disprove an existing theory, but it is never stated what
the results of this experiment are to be measured against. Clearly,
some species of novelty is sought and a simple test of success or
failure is unlikely.
Regardless of issues of testing or novelty, Hiller and Isaacson
treat the output of the four "experiments" as data representative
of the techniques used, even after it has been incorporated into a
piece of music:
Computer output produced as a result of carrying out these four
experiments was utilized to produce a four-movement piece of music
we have entitled the Illiac Suite for String Quartet.... The
musical materials in these four movements were taken from a much
larger body of material by unbiased sampling procedures, so that a
representative rather than a selectively chosen musically superior
group of results would be included in the Illiac Suite. Thus, it is
important to realize when examining this score that our primary aim
was not the presentation of an aesthetic unity-a work of art. This
music was meant to be a research record-a laboratory notebook.
(Hiller and Isaacson 1959, 5)
This piece of music is considered primarily a representative
sample of an experimental data set. The description above makes
claims to the objec- tivity of the material selected; "unbiased
sampling procedures" were used to make the selection in order to
prevent a "subjective" representation of the materials and thus a
falsification of the data. The composer claims to be doing
scientific research.
The composer suggests that the Illiac Suite is not really a work
of art at all. But as a laboratory notebook the piece has limited
research utility.
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Without the complete data set or a statistical analysis we
really have no idea how representative the Illiac Suite is of the
techniques used or how exactly and consistently those techniques
produced the expected results. At best it is a demonstration of
examples that would accompany a scien- tific paper containing the
data analysis. Without the analysis there is no sound scientific
reason for examining only a small subset of the data taken. If the
Illiac Suite is science, then it is not good science.
It would seem that the Illiac Suite is neither musical art nor
science. What, then, does it accomplish? First, it serves as a
demonstration of cer- tain new musical techniques, but more
importantly, it serves as an advo- cate for those techniques. The
claims to scientific association are appeals to the authority of
science to legitimate this advocacy.
The promotion of technique is clearly stated in Hiller's
description of his piece Computer Cantata and the computer program,
MUSICOMP, used to produce it:
Since our primary purpose was to demonstrate the flexibility and
generality of MUSICOMP, the Computer Cantata presents a rather wide
variety of compositional procedures. . . . [T]he interested
composer should find these studies of significance as a concrete
demonstration of the broadening of the research area of experimen-
tal composition techniques made feasible by computers and by a
program such as MUSICOMP. (Hiller and Baker 1964, 62)
In this instance, the composer's stated purpose is the promotion
of a technique. The piece "presents a wide variety of procedures"
in order to inventory the flexibility of a computer program;
compositional decisions are made with the objective of
demonstrating the power of a technique. Hiller tells us that
composers should find this piece significant. Why? because it
displays what is feasible, what can be done by others. The piece
functions as an advertisement for the procedures that produced
it.
Likewise, technique becomes a way of promoting pieces. If the
primary purpose of the composition is to demonstrate a technique,
as a conse- quence, the primary purpose of listening becomes to
hear examples of techniques. Evidence of this is commonly found in
program notes that not only describe the procedures employed but
also inventory the equip- ment used. The audience is persuaded that
the technique is, in itself, rea- son to listen.
Experimental composition in this sense is not simply a
technique, as it is in scientific practice, but a technology. By
this I mean that it is not merely a tool for some purposeful action
but an economy of techniques that propagates a set of tools,
practices, and relations. Consider the market dynamics of high-tech
industry. New techniques are developed as
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From Experimental Music to Musical Experiment
commodities which are desirable in so far as they exhibit the
latest techni- cal achievement. Technology not only develops and
generates tech- niques, but it also generates demand for more
techniques. Technology functions as an advertisement for the
technology that produced it.
By invoking science in order to legitimate musical innovations,
those innovations are transposed into the social economy of
technology. They are valued more as technical achievements than as
contributions to music. What may potentially be radical music is
instead merely another step in the development of the latest
synthesizer or software.5 Vanguard music is displaced from its role
as part of a public cultural life and becomes a technical
specialty.
Whether or not Hiller's experiments were motivated by commercial
potential is not important. What is significant are the social
relations that music enters into when it is talked about as
technological research. The language of technology demands that we
value musical works according to the economy of technology. Without
discussing the advantages or dis- advantages, one can see that
music is relocated in the field of social rela- tions. The word
"experimental" is a marker for that relocation.
EXPERIMENT AS FUNCTION
John Cage states that "an experimental action is one the outcome
of which is unforeseen" (Cage 1973, 39). Here, "experiment" is
neither category nor technique; it indicates a function, one with
an unpredictable output. Metzger (and Cage also) points out that
musical experiments usually precede the final composition.
Materials and methods are tried out and tested before they are
incorporated into a composition in order to insure that the
finished work will not be "experimental."6 Cage's work was an
exception to this. He was interested in finished works that per-
formed an unpredictable action.
Cage's primary model of "experimental music" is the composition
indeterminate with respect to its performance: open form works like
Christian Wolffs Duo for Pianists II (1958); graphic scores like
Earle Brown's December 1952; score-construction kits like Cage's
Variations II (1961). Each of these pieces has the potential to be
realized in substan- tially different ways and so each performance
is an experiment in the sense that the outcome is not
predictable.
For Cage, this unpredictable function, experiment, became
central to his musical thinking. It dissolved the opposition
between intended and unintended sounds implicit in traditional
music. An unforeseen sound event cannot be one that was intended by
the composer, yet the com- poser can intentionally provide the
opportunity for such events. Music
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was no longer discursive, or expressive, but a constellation of
sounds: "New music: new listening. Not an attempt to understand
something that is being said, for, if something were being said,
the sounds would be given the shapes of words. Just an attention to
the activity of sounds" (Cage 1973, 10). Cage saw experiment as a
strategy for leaving out the composer's intention, for removing
expression from music.
Cage connected the emergence of "experimental music" to the pos-
sibilities opened up by electronic recording and sound-synthesis
tech- niques. Traditional conceptions of musical sound treat
parameters such as pitch, rhythm, amplitude, et cetera, as divided
into discrete units. Coun- terpoint, harmony, and orchestration are
all concerned with structuring significant distinctions within this
grid of discrete units, whereas elec- tronic techniques treat these
parameters as continuous.
They resemble walking-in the case of pitches, on steppingstones
twelve in number. This cautious stepping is not characteristic of
the possibilities of magnetic tape, which is revealing to us that
musical action or existence can occur at any point or along any
line or curve or what have you in total sound-space; that we are,
in fact, techni- cally equipped to transform our contemporary
awareness of nature's manner of operation into art. (Cage 1973,
9)
Cage suggests that technical means draw us closer to sound's
real nature. Natural sound is not divided into scales, beats,
instruments, and so on. It does not conform to the necessities of
expressive means. Musical experi- ment, by divesting itself of the
requirements of expression, is free to include the sound
environment and the unrestricted (and unpredictable) behaviors of
natural sound.
Second, technical means explode the sound possibilities for
music; music can now take place in a total sound-space. All sounds
are available. The magnetic tape makes no distinctions between
intended and unin- tended sound, between musical sound and noise.
Any succession or com- bination of sounds is possible: "Any sound
at any point in this total sound-space can move to become a sound
at any other point" (Cage 1973, 9).
As a consequence, all basis for the meaningful significance of
any musi- cal event is removed. There can be no context of
meaningful possibilities when all events are equally possible,
equally unpredictable. Musical means are divorced from all
conventions of expression. In the context of infinite technical
possibilities, all sound events are undifferentiated and thus
meaningless.
Third, Cage uses the technical possibilities to collapse the
opposition of production and reception, of composer and auditor. He
doesn't say
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that technical means transform the composer's awareness of what
can be made, or of what can be done. Technical means "transform our
. . . awareness into . . . art." We are all listeners and thus we
are all artists. Technique is not a means to control sound but
rather to give up control. A way of opening up listening and
filtering out the exercise of intention, "Those involved with the
composition of experimental music find ways and means to remove
themselves from the activities of the sounds they make" (Cage 1973,
10).
A decisive moment in the development of Cage's thinking involves
an encounter with technology. Cage often told the story of how in
1951 he entered an anechoic chamber-an acoustically isolated room
designed to minimize sound reflection-and how he heard the sounds
of his nervous system and circulatory system (Cage 1973, 13). He
entered in search of silence only to discover that we are always in
the presence of sound. He realized that silence consists of all
those sounds that we do not intend to hear, the sounds that we
ignore. The concept of silence is an abstraction, not a matter of
the absence of sound but rather of the absence of atten- tion.
Sounds that occur apart from purposeful action (including purpose-
ful hearing) are not there, they are silent, but only with
reference to purposeful intention.
The concert hall, like the anechoic chamber, is a space
engineered in order to isolate sounds for intentionality. All sound
activity peripheral to the music on stage is absorbed, either
physically (by the hall acoustics) or socially (by directing and
conditioning audience response). In the con- cert hall one is
surrounded by silence so that one can focus on the music. In the
anechoic chamber one is surrounded by silence so that one can focus
on an acoustics experiment or test. Both are technologies of
listen- ing. In both, silence is the margin of perceptual focus
(Ihde 1976, 111- 13).
Cage's experience revealed that the silence in both situations
was a function of intention and that intention functions to filter
out perceptions not relevant to intention's purposes. The anechoic
chamber provided the opportunity for an experiment, an
unpredictable situation. The chamber is designed to serve as a
prosthetic to intention, to filter out unwanted perception, to
focus attention on a specified object. But Cage enters the chamber
anticipating the unexpected, without an object or an objec- tive-an
experiment. Cage's discovery results when he uses the experi-
mental apparatus to filter out purposeful intention so that
perception is unrestricted. The chamber serves Cage not so much as
an acoustically controlled situation but as an acoustically
unpredictable situation. Exper- iment functions to filter out
intention so that perception is not restricted to intention's
object.
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The fact that this use runs counter to the intentions for which
the anechoic chamber was designed highlights the dialectic that is
at the heart of Cage's experiment. The chamber is like a listening
machine, an acoustic magnifying glass. But the chamber presents
itself as a silence machine; Cage enters wondering what silence
will sound like. With this misunderstanding Cage turns the machine
back on itself; he listens to himself listening through a
technology of listening. Cage listens to the machine, not merely
with the machine, he looks at the magnifying glass rather than
through it. He notices that the listening machine makes sounds (for
Cage is a cyborg, the chamber is an extension of his ear (or is his
ear an extension of the chamber?)); the ear hears itself.
Cage repeats the experiment in the concert hall. The concert
hall purports to be a silent room, but Cage understands that it is
really a listening machine, and he performs the same inversion that
he experi- enced in the anechoic chamber. In 4'33" the concert hall
listens to itself, to its ventilation, to its breathing and
coughing, to its restlessness and its reverberation (for the
audience member is a cyborg, the hall an extension of the ear (or
is the ear an extension of the hall?)); the ear hears itself.
EXPERIMENT AS HEURISTIC-CONCLUSION
Experiment as heuristic is the performance of this inversion,
the mecha- nism turning back on itself, a moment that sounds forth
the contradic- tions within the otherwise silent functioning of a
technique. Techniques are designed to effect an intended and
anticipated end, to function smoothly, to operate invisibly,
silently. Only when technique malfunc- tions do we attend to it
(the squeaky wheel . . .). In the experimental moment we not only
attend to sound, but also to the theories, opposi- tions, and
categories implicit in the mechanism of a practice.
Cage defines experiment in terms of function. But Cage's
definition precludes functionality in the sense of technical means.
Experiment is dysfunctional insofar as its unpredictability makes
it unfit for purposeful use; it cannot be a goal-oriented action.
And yet the apparatus, the instruments, the techniques that
comprise the experiment carry with them a history of purposeful
use, otherwise they would not be techniques. The difference between
function and malfunction is one of intention and consequently also
one of perception. This difference is the locus of experiment's
dialectic, "the purposeful purposelessness or a pur- poseless play"
(Cage 1973, 12).
Scientific experiments are techniques executed with an intended
pur- pose, to confirm the predictions made by theory. Scientific
practice is not
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From Experimental Music to Musical Experiment
looking for novelty but rather evidence in support of its
current paradigm (Kuhn 1962, 52). Cage's experiment seems to be
headed in the opposite direction, in search of the unpredictable,
but there is an interesting point of intersection.
When scientific experiment yields unexpected results, and it
repeatedly does, theory is called into question. The unexpected
must be explained by new theory; thus, new theories are invented or
discovered: "Discovery commences with the awareness of anomaly"
(Kuhn 1962, 52). Cage's definition of experimental action, "one the
outcome of which is not fore- seen" (Cage 1973, 39), corresponds to
experimental anomaly in science. The unforeseen musical event
exceeds our ability to "make sense" of it; it ruptures our
interpretive framework. For both science and music, the moment of
discovery is structured in the same way; the experimental event
cannot be accommodated by the framework of meaning-giving
relationships that preceded its appearance.
Within the economy of technology, experiment marks the site
where knowledge, practices, and techniques are extended and
advanced. Research and development are at the center of
technological expansion. Consequently, this is also where there are
sufficient flexibilities in the technological network to allow new
relations to come into being. The social order must restructure
itself in response to changes in the forces of production. The
music criticism that Metzger refers to speaks on behalf of a social
order destabilized by new techniques. So does the musicology that
would turn various heuristic anomalies, compositional experiments,
into examples of a genre. But new relations are thus reintegrated
into the overall network; their critical difference is appropriated
by the dominant order. The link between experimental composition
and technology defines a domain wherein critical relations are
enabled and also where they are effaced; where new compositional
practices are empowered but also where their effects are
neutralized and dispersed.
The heuristic moment is one of breakdown-the inadequacy of
theory, the malfunction of technique, the rupture of interpretive
frameworks, the dissolution of categories. The question is no
longer "what is experimen- tal music," but rather "when is music an
experiment"; when is music heuristic? To use "experiment" in this
way is to include in the discussion at least some of the conditions
that structure the context in which exper- iment takes place.
Hopefully, language about music can then be as heu- ristic as the
musical innovations it attempts to describe.
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NOTES
1. Michael Nyman's book, Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond
(1974), is perhaps the first extended attempt to argue for "experi-
mental music" as an historical category. His definition differs
from the NGA entry and is more nuanced, but the nature of the
attempt is the same.
2. "Experimental music" does not appear as an entry in the New
Grove Dictionary of Music, only in the New Grove Dictionary of
American Music. The NGA characterization of "experimental music" as
Amer- ican is corroborated in other reference works: "experimental
work has been much more a feature of American and English music
than of mainland European" (Griffiths 1986, s.v. "Experimental
Music"); "used to distinguish anti-traditional composers, such as
Cage, from the established avant-garde of Boulez and Stockhausen"
(Arnold 1983, s.v. "Experimental Music"); "Among American pioneers
of experimental practice are Ives, Ruggles, Varese, and Cage"
(More- head with MacNeil 1991, s.v. "Experimental Music").
3. Cowell and Strang 1927-1955, sporadic publication after 1955.
4. Except for Cage's short residency at Wesleyan (1960-61),
most
"experimental" composers began their first academic appointments
in the late sixties: Cage's next appointment was University of
Cincin- nati (1967); Gordon Mumma, Brandeis (1966-67); Earle Brown,
Peabody Conservatory (1968); Robert Ashley, Mills (1969); Lou
Harrison, San Jose University (1967); Morton Feldman, SUNY- Buffalo
(1972); Christian Wolff, Dartmouth (1970) (Wolff taught classics at
Harvard before 1970). The exception is Alvin Lucier, Brandeis
(1963).
5. Composers have had professional relationships with Bell Labs,
Phillips, RCA, Sylvania, and Yamaha. After the commercial success
of FM synthesis, composers developing new synthesis techniques
remain cognizant of the needs of a multi-million dollar industry.
Sound synthesis research, like the present interest in acoustic
model- ing, functions as research and development for the music
synthe- sizer/software industry and takes place under the auspices
of university ("experimental") music studios.
6. Stockhausen (1960) clearly separates experiments from the
final composition: "Experiments were made in the Studio for
Electronic
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Music at the West German Radio Station in Cologne from February
1958 until Autumn 1959. The score and its realization, commis-
sioned by the West German Radio, took from September 1959 until May
1960 to be completed."
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Arnold, Denis, ed. 1983. The New Oxford Companion to Music.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Boretz, Benjamin. 1977. "Musical Cosmology." Perspectives of New
Music 15, no. 2 (Spring-Summer): 122-32.
Cage, John. 1973. Silence. Middletown: Wesleyan University
Press. Cowell, Henry, and Gerald Strang, eds. 1927-1955. New Music.
Griffiths, Paul. 1986. The Thames and Hudson Encyclopedia of 20th
Cen-
tury Music. London: Thames and Hudson. Hiller, Lejaren, and L.
M. Isaacson. 1959. Experimental Music: Composi-
tion with an Electronic Computer. New York: McGraw-Hill Book
Company.
Hiller, Lejaren A., and Robert A. Baker. 1964. "Computer
Cantata: a study in Compositional Method." Perspectives of New
Music 3, no.l (Fall-Winter): 62-90.
Hitchcock, H. Wiley, and Stanley Sadie, eds. 1986. New Grove
Dictio- nary of American Music. London: MacMillan Press
Limited.
Ihde, Don. 1976. Listening and Voice: A Phenomenology of Sound.
Athens: Ohio University Press.
Kerman, Joseph. 1985. Contemplating Music. Cambridge: Harvard
Uni- versity Press.
Krauss, Rosalind E. 1985. The Originality of the Avant-Garde and
Other Modernist Myths. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Kuhn, Thomas S. 1962. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
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Metzger, Heinz-Klaus. 1959. "Abortive Concepts in the Theory and
Criticism of Music." Die Reihe 5 (English edition, trans. Leo
Black, Bryn Mawr: Theodore Presser Company, 1961): 21-29.
Morehead, Phil D., with Anne MacNeil. 1991. New American Dictio-
nary of Music. New York: Dutton.
Nyman, Michael. 1974. Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond. New
York: Schirmer Books.
Rosenberg, Harold. 1959. The Tradition of the New. New York:
McGraw Hill Book Company.
Source Magazine-Music of the Avant-Garde, nos. 1-12. 1967-72.
Stockhausen, Karlheinz. 1960. "Kontakte, program note for the
ISCM
Festival, Cologne. Reprinted as liner note for LP, trans. anon.,
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194p. 195p. 196p. 197p. 198p. 199p. 200p. 201p. 202p. 203p. 204
Issue Table of ContentsPerspectives of New Music, Vol. 35, No. 1
(Winter, 1997), pp. 1-270Front Matter [pp. 1 - 4]For Richard Swift
at 70Introduction [pp. 5 - 6]For Richard Swift [pp. 7 - 11]Not Only
Rows in Richard Swift's "Roses Only" [pp. 13 - 47]Monogram (Omaggio
al Rovescio) [pp. 49 - 52]Banqueting with the Emperor:
Desiderata--in Honor of Richard Swift [pp. 53 - 60]On Association,
Realization, and Form in Richard Swift's "Things of August" [pp. 61
- 114]History and Archetypes [pp. 115 - 127]
The Horrors of Identification: Reich's "Different Trains" [pp.
129 - 152]Modal Formations and Transformations in the First
Movement of Chou Wen-Chung's "Metaphors" [pp. 153 - 185]From
Experimental Music to Musical Experiment [pp. 187 -
204]Interpreting Music Durationally: A Set-Theory Approach to
Rhythm [pp. 205 - 230]Robert Moevs's "Heptchronon" for Solo Cello
[pp. 231 - 261]Editorial Notes [pp. 263 - 265]Correspondence [p.
266]Back Matter [pp. 267 - 270]