Work

John Cage

John Cage Composer

Variations 4, for any number of players, any sounds produced by any means with or without other activities

Performances: 1
Tracks: 6
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Musicology:
  • Variations 4, for any number of players, any sounds produced by any means with or without other activities
    Year: 1963
    • Excerpts: 7pm to 8pm
    • Excerpts: 8pm to 9pm
    • Excerpts: 9pm to 10pm
    • Excerpts: 10pm to 11pm
    • Excerpts: 11pm to 12 am
    • Excerpts: 12am to 1am

Composed in 1963, the score for this piece is on plastic transparencies: seven dots and two circles. One circle is placed on a map of the performance area and acts as a reference point. The dots and other circle are then dropped onto the map. These indicate performance events, and are connected with lines to the reference circle. The second circle functions as an event only when one of the connecting lines touches or crosses the circle. Sounds may come from any part of the performance area, or outside of it, if one of the dots or circles occurs outside the map. Doors may be opened to let in sound. Two or more points may be taken as a sound in movement. In one realization for the legendary ONCE Festival in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1964, a performer tied to a plank was hoisted onto a high and delicately balanced pivot; from time to time the plank would move as the performer could not help laughing at an interview with one of the local academic composers played over the loudspeakers and mimed by two other performers; a car with an ignition problem was continually started just outside the building; mining caps were detonated in a particularly resonate men's room; a performer with accordion and cane asked for spare change from the audience; a local garage band's drummer practiced away. In Cage and Tudor's recorded realization, myriad sound sources from recordings and live broadcast and microphones on the street and over the bar etc. were electronically modified, mixed and distributed by several independent performers in various rooms throughout the Fiegen/Palmer gallery in Los Angeles. An overview of Cage's vision can be gained when considering his instruction that "Variations IV" (dealing with social interaction and the distribution of manmade sounds) is part of a single work of which "Atlas Eclipticalis" (a score made from the motions of stars) and 0'00" (a score of individual action realized in the fulfillment of an obligation) are the other two parts.

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