Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Cage Surprises Again

Cage caught me off guard when I watched the movie of his performance in class, shocker huh? I was part expecting part hoping that he would be preforming something that sounded like techno music because the work was done with electronic instruments. After I realized it wasn't anything of the techno sort :( I tried to listen to all the sounds in the piece. I liked how some sounds would start out as more dominate than others but then they would fade into the background and replaced with a new dominate sound. It was almost like the ambient background music had background music to itself. After awhile though it became hard to focus on the movie because the sound lost my attention and I just sat there thinking with Cage's performance as a soundtrack to my thoughts. Every now and then a new interesting sound would pop up and catch my attention for a few minutes. I enjoyed when they showed the audience because it showed how different people reacted to the performance. Some people were sleeping, others looked confused and perplexed by what they heard, and others were smiling and enjoying the music as if the were at a rock concert.
I enjoy reading about Cage's ideas in his book. I thought the silent room was neat because Cage still heard the sounds of his body working. I really wonder how Cage would react if the room was actually completely void of sound. Would he just sit there and take it in or would he get up and say, "Well this is boring" and then proceeded to make as many random sounds as possible with whatever he could use? With Cage it could go either way, or a bit of both. True silence may never be possible but I think that might be a good thing.

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