[NewMusic] Braxton on FOX

[Chris Broderick]

I once took a class where we saw a documentary about
Cage which included a performance of 4'33" by David
Tudor.  Right before the performance started, the
professor (a former member of Sha Na Na, incidentally)
paused the video and had us all turn our seats away
from the screen & close our eyes.  During the
performance he kept shouting orders such as "Keep your
eyes closed!", "Listen carefully!", and my personal
favorite, "One more minute!"

Which is to say, Andrew, it could be a lot worse...

-Chris


--- andrew raffo dewar <freemovementarts at gmail.com>
wrote:

> > On Mon Oct  2 08:48:14 2006, tedbrinkley at
> sbcglobal.net  wrote:
> > anyone getting HS kids even a little
> > exposure to different way of organizing and
> thinking
> > about sound is to be commended, and commended
> again
> > for putting it on TV.
> 
> Of course it's great that it happened at all, and
> exposing kids to this 
> kind of material is to be commended.  (I've done
> that myself with 4 yr. 
> olds up to university students, so clearly it's not
> that I'm against 
> using this stuff in an institutional context)
> 
> Basically, my reservations with the performance are
> epitomized in the 
> trumpet solo -- instead of having the kid attempt to
> reproduce Leo 
> Smith's 30 yr. old solo, why not help him develop
> his own relationship 
> to the piece and create his own statement? Sure,
> it's possible the 
> director did that and that's what the kid came up
> with, but that 
> wouldn't be where I'd put my money.
> 
> Symbolically, it reminds me a bit of this
> performance of Cage's 4'33" 
> (though it is *nowhere near* as bad as this, which
> was performed by a 
> 'professional' orchestra):
> http://tinyurl.com/rqmqa
> 
> So, it is Cage's 4'33", and it is being exposed to a
> large audience via 
> BBC television -- but is that really good enough? In
> this case, it's 
> not given even remotely the same respect as a
> performance of Mozart or 
> what have you -- notice the conductor mopping his
> brow and the 
> resultant chuckles at the 3 minute mark.
> 
> Is it really doing the music a service simply by
> having it pass through 
> a larger number of eyes and ears, regardless of the
> context and 
> execution?
> 
> I guess I think of it like the difference between
> water purified 
> through layers of rock over the course of years
> versus using a kitchen 
> counter pitcher-type water filter -- you can drink
> both, but there is a 
> fundamental difference between the two resulting
> liquids, how they were 
> produced, and what nourishment you get from them.
> 
> Andrew
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Bay Area New Music Discussion Group
> NewMusic at music.mills.edu
> http://music.mills.edu/mailman/listinfo/newmusic
> 


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