Experimental Music Cage and beyond, by Michael Nyman

The book; Experimental Music Cage and Beyond (Nyman, 1999) was written by Michael Nyman in 1974 with a second edition appearing in 1999. Nyman is a composer directly influenced by, and practicing within the culture of late twentieth century minimalist music. Nyman’s career is laden with examples of working with filmmakers on soundtracks [especially Peter Greenaway] to create a symbiosis of moving image and music. He has also composed a huge repertoire of music for strings and more recently, operas. Nyman’s work is audibly influenced by the canonistic nature of baroque music.

This book clearly indicates the significance of John Cage’s presence in the beginnings of post war experimental music. Nyman starts chapter one with analysis of Cage’s 4’33’’, the undeniably experimental work which requires the performer only to sit at the piano for the duration specified in the title of this work. Nyman quickly gets to the point of identifying a difference between experimental and avant-garde music, which can be summarised in two quotes from Cage and Stockhausen (Nyman 1999 p.29). Cage suggests here and in other parts of Nyman’s book that he attempts to create experiments or situations within his work, and that the work can begin to exist in the mind of the audience as a consequence. Stockhausen is referenced for the avant-garde and describes how he accepts that experiments should be allowed to happen as long as the results do not clash or set components off balance thereby leading the composer to fail in creating harmony.

In chapter four, Nyman gives a good review of Fluxus actions with respect to sound and music. He offers many examples of George Brecht’s pieces of written instruction. He compares Cage’s instruction works to Brecht’s and suggests that Cage allows all performers equal involvement allowing for differences in their abilities. Brecht on the other hand, sets up situations that already seem very ready-made by including simple written instructions often in the form of a short list. Brecht uses a deck of cards, a vessel of water or a hair comb. Nyman guides us toward the work of the pioneering experimentalist La Monte Young, who by Nyman’s term could also be described as an avant-garde composer. He states how Young composed several works to apparently re-consider the function of musical instruments and traditional performance situations. He describes several of Young’s fluxus works in terms of their persistence, aggression and apparent direction at the audience.

In one of these the audience is locked in a theatre, the event ending when they find their way out; in another, tickets are to be sold between eight and nine pm, but at nine pm an announcement is made that the play has already started and will end at twelve pm, yet at no time will the audience be admitted. (Nyman 1999 p.85)

In the first half of chapter seven Nyman reviews American minimalism in light of developments in New York at the hand of La Monte Young and his Theatre of Eternal Music. He also explains that by the early 1960s; Terry Riley, Steve Reich, Philip Glass and La Monte Young were about to begin to limit the very high levels of indeterminacy with which they had been working. Nyman explains that Young was attracted to the work of Anton Webern in terms of it’s use of tones that are held across octaves throughout large portions of Webern’s work. Nyman places Young’s composition Trio for Strings (1958) in context as a serial composition of long notes. He describes Young’s modal techniques and the arrival at drone Young experienced with his group The Theatre of Eternal Music.

Nyman follows the course of Terry Riley’s compositional work at a time when he was also performing with The Theatre of Eternal Music. Riley was performing solo improvisations that multiplied themselves on a cellular level. Riley would tape record his Saxophone and keyboard utterances during a performance and replay them immediately continuing to layer the fragments of melody played. Riley’s most well known work In C reminds the listener of earlier instruction works by Cage and Brecht. The performers of In C work through 53 modal phrases repeating each form as many times as they choose. One performer keeps tempo by repeatedly playing middle C. This work with a few simple rules can be played by any number of musicians working collectively as individuals on whichever instruments they choose capable of the required range.

NYMAN, M. (1999). Experimental Music Cage and Beyond. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.