Customer Reviews

John Cage: Variations IV

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This is a low-fi recording of a sound collage event that took place in Los Angeles in 1965. A bunch of pre-recorded tapes were triggered and overlaid in real time using chance operations. This CD contains excerpts from the six hour performance.

Cage was sincere about process over product. He reportedly didn't listen to records (of his own music or anybody else's). I think this CD is fun, but since there's no intentionality to the sound constructions it's hard to grade. I think the last two tracks are the best blend of the source material (the same tapes keep popping up in different tracks) but if you appreciate media collage you'll enjoy the whole thing. Be warned, though, that this is not "soundboard" quality -- sounds more like somebody set a tape recorder in the middle of the room.

This type of music is an amazing trip through an audio landscape. After several plays of this disc, you'll find yourself making the most fascinating, improbable mental connections between different sound sources. A fun disc. It may even inspire you to create something similar.

I purchased this CD on the sole recommendation that it was by John Cage, an artist I had read a lot about in my studies in the field of Electronic and Experimental Music. This piece was mentioned often as a great example of the chance elements of sound-work.

It was a great influence on my work. And it will be on yours, too, if you just give it a chance!

John Cage's "Variations IV, Volume II" follows a technique known as chance composition. I think that the technique itself is a very unique idea because it allows for a broader definition as to what music really is, in other words music is not used in the same means in John Cage's album as it would be with an artist who would create music. Chance composition, however does bring artistic control in a very limited aspect. The artistic aspect lies in placing microphones in locations that John Cage chose. This album relates to how technosonics lectures were reviewing the different types of music that were being performed during the 1930's and John Cage was a very famous performer during this time.
The broader definition that chance composition gives to music is that the sound created in the music does not need to be artistically controlled. However, there is no clear definition to what music is, other than it can subjective to the musician who gives their own definition to music through the music that they create. In fact, everyone has their own definition to what music is. John Cage, according to the music he created in "Variations IV Vol. II"and the definition that he provided is that music is not just identified by what the artist creates, but in fact that music (or sound for that matter) is created by anything that a person can hear. John Cage not only portrays this in the chance composition I listened to, where he places microphones in random places and records what the microphones pick up and mixes these sounds with radio broadcasts. He also portrays this in his piece 4 minutes 44 seconds, where he just records sound without playing a single note.
Chance composition is a very distinct way in which John Cage is able to record sound that is picked up by microphones and is able to put this recorded sound onto an album to portray to people what his own definition as to what music is. Cage in fact "leveled" the playing field in this album by recording sounds that were not artistically controlled in any aspect which is why he is known as one of the most famous musicians of the 20th century. John Cage demonstrates the genius of chance composition that made him so famous in Imaginary Landscapes No. 4, in which he uses sounds captured from the radio and sounds from the performance area and has them randomly spliced and mixed together through a machine that randomly combines the effects of both sounds. The only subjective aspect of this whole process is that the composer gets to control the dynamics and timbre of the music because it is not specified by Cage as to whether the performer can or cannot control this aspect.
John Cage's work is very important to the study of electronic music and to technosonics because it provides a basis of why music does not need to be controlled by the performer. In fact, there are many programs by computers that can randomly generate sounds or use sounds that were recorded by microphones that are seemingly random and support John Cage's fact that music can relate to any sound heard or created. John Cage's purpose to creating this music was for people to appreciate the sounds that go around them and to be entertained by the sounds occurring around them in the middle of say Grand Central Park without having to go to a concert hall. Also, John Cage has many other followers that listen to his music as well and have imitated some of the approaches that he has used before.
John Cage, as a musician in the twentieth century, opened the field of music to be represented from artistically controlled music to music that can be represented by noise occurring throughout the environment in which people live in. However, I believe that music cannot entirely be independent there are at least some aspects that are controlled by the artist (recording the sound), even though the sound is entirely independent of the musical control of the artist. The only flaw to John Cage's use of microphones to record random sounds is that he is able to place the microphones in certain locations, so this aspect indicates the creative control that the artist has in choosing where to place microphones. It is hard o say what his album sounded like other than describing that there were sounds of people, radio broadcasts were mixed together, and seemingly random sounds that occurred throughout the day. If there was a process in which there wasn't a single aspect that wasn't controlled by the artist then I would consider it the biggest breakthrough in music history. I believe that John Cage is one of the most important men in music history because he was able to generate the process and movement of artists who wanted their egos to be removed from the whole process and hear how sound was being portrayed by the natural environment.

I bought Variations IV parts on and two one Everest Records when I was in High School and so desperate I'd buy records if their covers looked strange.

This was late High School, 67 or 68. I was shaken to discover that the reason I thought the second LP was a lusher album because its cover art was in color, unlike the identical cover art of album one which was in black and white.

The fact that such a simple cue could make such a drastic change in my interpretation of what was (unknown to me) just the second half of a tape of one evenings live performance.

Before I discovered my boo boo I had two of my buddies convinced they thought the second LP was "better" or "worse" - one of them liking Koto music cause it was "rational" and the other liking Raga music cause it was "spiritual".

We were such utter fools..... and life was full of delight like discovering the layers of our own bias and brain by pieces of music like Cage's Variations 4.

I remember NOW why I bought it, the recording guy was the band leader of The United States of America, the first US Electronic Music Rock band. Their female vocalist was AMAZING.

I'm going to play that record.

Now.