Sabine Liebner | John Cage | Music for Piano 1 – 84

Description by John Cage

1. Given ink, pen, and sheets of transparent paper of determined dimensions, a master page (without notations) is made, having four total systems. “Total” here means having enough space above and below each staff to permit its being either bass or treble. Thus, there being the conventional two staves (one for each hand), each has enough space above it to accommodate nine ledger lines (as equidistant as those of the staves) and below it to accommodate six ledger lines plus (leaving room for the extreme low piano and string). Between the two there is a narrow space, bisected by a line, allowing for the notation of noises produced by hand or beater upon the interior (above the line) or exterior (below the line) piano construction. Measurements are such that the entire sheet (within margins) is potentially useful.
2. Laying the master page aside, chance operations derived from the I-Ching and channeled within certain limits (1-128 for 21-36; 1-32 for 37-52) (which are established in relation to relative difficulty of performance) are employed to determine the number of sounds per page.
3. A blank sheet of transparent paper is then placed so that its pointal imperfections may readily be observed. That number of imperfections corresponding to the determined number of sounds is intensified with pencil.
4. Placing the penciled sheet in a registered way upon the master page, first the staves and interline and then the ledger lines where necessary are inscribed in ink. Secondly, conventional whole notes are written in ink wherever a penciled point falls within the area of staves or ledger lines, inked-in notes (crotchets without stems) being written wherever such a point falls within the space between the two staves. This operation is done roughly, since, through the use of conventional lines and spaces, points falling in the latter are in the majority. Thus it is determined that a point, though not on a line, is actually more nearly so than it is at the center of the adjacent space.
5. Eight single coin tosses are made determining the clefs, bass or treble, and inscribed in ink.
6. The sixty-four possibilities of the I-Ching are divided by chance operations into three groups relative to three categories: normal (played on the keyboard); muted; and plucked (the two latter played on the strings). A similar procedure is followed to determine whether a tone is natural, sharp, or flat.
7. The notation of the composition is thus completed. Much that occurs in performance has not been determined.

John Cage has influenced the artistic production of the 20th and 21st centuries like no other composer, both in the musical, performing and visual fields. His boundary-pushing approach set the tone for subsequent generations of composers and artists.
John Cage completely reformulated the concept of music by using chance operations and indetermination as principles of composition, inventing new forms of notation and establishing noise and silence as essential musical elements. His works are not defined by the development of an individual tonal language that has evolved over the years and thus become an unmistakable characteristic. Rather, he derives his identity as a composer from the reversal of this attitude by postulating the liberation of sounds from personal preferences and narrative elements.
As a composer and thinker, John Cage radically breaks with Western tradition: his experimental work does not aim to arrive at a conclusion, the focus is not on the result but on the open, constantly changing work process. He thus takes evaluation criteria ad absurdum, the comprehensible connection between composition and performance is severed and the position of composer and performer is redefined. Event and uneventfulness, sound and silence are at the center of John Cage’s music.