Customer Reviews

Indeterminacy: New Aspect of Form in Instrumental and Electronic Music

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I first heard selections from "Indeterminacy" when I was driving on the freeway. I had to pull off and listen. I'd never heard anything like it. I filed it away in the back of my mind and one day wandered into a record shop in Ontario, Canada, where, what should I see, but "Indeterminacy" on a couple of LPs. When I finally found it on CD, I did the same thing I'd done with the LPs. Bought it immediately. The anecdotes Cage tells seem disarmingly simple and naive, but each one has larger ramifications: about how to listen to music, about how the world works or ought to work, about how music and the world are related, about questioning, etc. That is, about life's largest issues. And they're often very funny, told in Cage's unique dead-pan style--a precursor for many dead-pan narrators since. And David Tudor's background work is equally quirky, witty, surprising and inventive--sometimes punctuating Cage's stories, other times oblivious to the narrative, even smothering it. From the liner notes, Tudor and Cage had no connection to each other--they were working in different studios. Everything that happened in the "accompaniment" was indeterminate.

In short, this is a good collection to introduce yourself to one of America's most original and provocative composer/philosophers.

It always amazes me that the most amazing things, the wittiest, the most thoughtful, are among the least read or listened to items in the Amazon catalog. It's like the ads for movies: the larger the ad, the more you should avoid the film; hunt for the little things.

When still a teenager I ordered a copy of this on vinyl from the States. In those days sea mail took three months to get a package from New York to Australia and I had almost given up when I got the postcard in the mail to say my order had arrived. The cost was astronomical, but I've had no regrets.

The stories are marvellous and introduced me to the monks of India and Japan, a passion for mushrooms and spices, Cage's novel approach to music and sound, the customs men in Holland who allowed John Cage to enter the country backwards to avoid paying duty on his cigarettes, and his friend's delight in the 'ardour' of the Russian ballet performance she had just seen.

In the past twenty-five years, the stories have inspired me to see the world and spend nine years in Japan looking for an old iron gate that some movie star in Hollywood would want to buy.

Please listen to the samples and make your own judgement, but be warned you may become obsessed and see the world a little differently afterwards.

I love it!! I thought I could only listen to it once or twice. But it has never left my CD player. The Inside notes are excellent on this CD. This is one of John Cage's best works!! Highly recomended to the Curious. Every fan of John Cage or classical music must own this CD!!!

If there is one thing John Cage taught us of open-minds, it was "just listen, expect nothing" and I can only add to the praise of this work and recording because, just as it should do, it fulfils different things for different people. It is entirely in keeping with Cage's philosophical vantage and easily his most approachable and oft-times amusing and thought-provoking work. Cage always reminds me I can still be astonished...and without that, life would lose something, I'm sure.

This album changed my whole way of thinking about music when I was 19. It adroitly describes and explains Cage's thinking through practice and example, as well as entertains the listener.

How fresh this composition is after all these years. The wonderful potpourri of stories, parables & anecdotes recited at various paces according to Cage's aleatoric score, with surprising bursts of sound from David Tudor. A landmark of American art & a perfect place to begin an exploration of Cage's philosophy.

Bob Rixon, WFMU-FM

If you have affinities at all with what the American avant-garde is, what it was, what it still can be, you need to search your roots. As un-avant-garde as that sounds, you need to look at where you came from, or else the time-bludgeoned aphorism you are fated to repeat what you don't know. And we have a full degree of repetition all around us with absolute ignorance of the avant-garde. These are Cage stories, he told which served as a body of knowledge you need if you are not a practicing Catholic or Jew. The avant-garde needed a spiritual leader and that was Cage. It still is, and this is where it began. The mere fact of reading stories, experiences,shards and fragments of knowledge and non-knowledge was the beginning of performance art. David Tudor plays as accompaniment his realization of one of Cage's Variations. Nothing is synchroized that was anathema back in the late Fifities. It's good to have this old Folkways re-released. I thought it was gone forever. My favorite is always I must have seen you before since I am seeing you again. There are also reports of performances. You canr ead some of what's here in The Cage Bible his "Silence.

This album changed my whole way of thinking about music when I was 19. It adroitly describes and explains Cage's thinking through practice and example, as well as entertains the listener.

There are about 100 recordings of John Cage available at one time or another, and quite variable in performance quality, some (such as Rings with Jay Clayton vocals) are quite nice, others are unfortunately too often disappointing, dull or even jarring. This two-disc stands above the rest as perhaps the most worthy of possessing of Cages recordings and perhaps most clearly exemplifies his musical philosophy. Indeterminacy is a fine example of Cages introduction of Zen into classical music. Chance composition of piano, noises, silences, varied recordings, are friendly unexpected welcome guests to the ear,and are accompanied by 60 very short stories gently spoken by John Cage. Some of the stories are personal, others are Oriental philosophy lessons, and some are about his penchant for mushroom collecting. Some of the stories are in his book; Silence. All are quickly spoken in a voice not dissimilar from Vincent Price! A nice accompaniment to the Alan Watts lectures of the same period.

each frame is a single minute... the rapidity of voice and pauses follow... with interjection of found sounds like small monks breaking wind from their toadstools