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Uncaged: John Cage and conceptual approaches to participatory music-making

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Title
Uncaged: John Cage and conceptual approaches to participatory music-making
Type
Article
Main Author
Williams, Sharon
Subject
ML Literature of music
ISSN
2232-1020
Language Code
eng
Bibliographic Details
Place of Production
Tanjong Malim
Publisher
Fakulti Muzik dan Seni Persembahan
Year of publication
2013
Notes
Vol. 2 No. 2 (2013): Malaysian Music Journal
Degree Type
Others
Corporate Name
Perpustakaan Tuanku Bainun

Abstract

This paper will explore conceptual approaches to participatory music-making, with a focus on the work of John Cage. Cage relied primarily on a performer-audience model of music-making; which seems paradoxical, as a non-hierarchical participatory model seems more in line with his philosophy. While his compositional methods appeared to indicate a desire for self-effacement and collaboration, the resultant works were often quite far from models of non-hierarchical co-creation. However, Cage was a composer who concerned himself primarily with illuminating concepts and demonstrating processes, rather than producing beautiful _objects_ and musical commodities. Embracing a community-based experimental model of participation involves departing from traditional Western art music paradigms that regard _sound_ primarily as a consumable _product_ and the individual composer as all-knowing, all-powerful and central to any experience of music. This movement from selfaggrandisement to self-effacement; from hierarchy to acceptance of difference; from occupation of territory to nomadic adventure; from cliches and _norms_ to the _novel_ and _unprecedented_, challenges the stature of the _professional_, within the tripartite musical system of composer, performer and listener. Rather than the solitary composer focusing on the creation of a _fixed_ text containing written instructions for its sonic actualisation, musical composition can be centred around the designing of events that encourage social cooperation. These events would be, ideally, non-hierarchical and participant-self-determining but most importantly, always in motion and a state of flux.

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