July 2012: International Young Musicians' Master Classes, Latvia

Song Books in Sigulda

Vir2Ual Cage team members Paul Berkolds, Jacqueline Bobak, and Mark Bobak are excited to conduct a series of workshops for colleagues and students from the International Latvian Young Musicians' Master Classes in Sigulda, Latvia from 14–23 July 2012, culminating in a performance of Song Books at Riga’s distinctive Spīķeri hall on 25 July. In this introductory post for participants, we reprise a previous post about our earlier workshops and performances in the Czech Republic in 2010.

Besides marking the Cage centenary, 2012 marks the tenth anniversary of the Master Classes, held this year in the picturesque town of Sigulda. Many of today’s leading Latvian musicians have participated in the biennial classes, which include lessons, seminars, and performances directed by a roster of acclaimed faculty and guest artists. The theme of this year's classes, New Dimensions in Music, coincides nicely with our project. On 25 July in Riga, we'll be joined by musicians and composers Justīne Kulakova, Asija Ahmetžanova, Lauma Skride, Diāna Zandberga, Juris Žvikovs, Andris Dzenītis, and Gundega Šmite. Also joining us will be Anna Etsuko Tsuri, an operatic stage director, lighting designer, and musician whose participation promises to extend our project in further dimensions.

In our workshops we'll present an overview of Cage’s compositional processes and aesthetics, engage participants in substantial creative work and discussion, facilitate processes of constructing realizations of various pieces from Song Books, develop strategies for employing indeterminacy and working within constraints, investigate non ego-based methods of composition and performance, and collaborate with current and former master class participants.

How to explain the incredibly diverse, complex collection that is Song Books to those who may be totally unfamiliar with it? In past workshops, we've found that exploring Song Books offers an excellent introduction to Cage's work in general. It's as though certain issues arise all by themselves, often as a series of questions that have to be answered somehow in order to construct a realization of a piece or mount a performance. In a nutshell, we invite prospective performers to proceed by reading Cage's directions, asking questions, determining a method for obtaining answers, acting on those answers in a disciplined manner, and repeating this process for as long as they’ve determined to do so.

We already have the answer to one important question: how long will the performance be on 25 July? After some discussion about programming on the rest of the concert, the first half of which will feature other pieces by Cage, as well as music composed and performed by alumni of previous years' master classes, we decided that the second half of the program will consist of a 33-minute rendition of Song Books.

In our workshops in Sigulda, we’ll discuss several individual pieces and help answer questions that arise. Meanwhile, information about Cage and and his work are widely available online. To help you decide whether to participate, or help you become more familiar with Song Books if you’ve already decided to participate, we suggest exploring several resources on this website: a biography of Cage and a description of Song Books; recorded excerpts and photos from previous performances; documents that categorize the many different pieces in Song Books; and discussions from previous workshops.

Familiarize yourself with Cage’s score, starting with the “General Directions,” then browsing throughout to get an idea of how the various pieces look. The two-volume score is published by Henmar Press, available through C. F. Peters (Edition Peters, No. 6806a, b, and c, 1970). Unfortunately it’s quite expensive, but is available at many libraries.

Asking Questions

The following steps offer an example of how to approach Song Books. Often such steps are not linear; you might find yourself going back and forth among them, refining them, adding additional steps based on the pieces you’ve chosen, etc. The point is to develop a process, a system of rules—essentially an algorithm—and follow it with discipline.

1) Read through the score and determine which pieces you’re able and willing to perform. 2) Determine which pieces will be practical for you to prepare, given your resources and the amount of time available. Then, possibly via chance operations (see the end of this post for more about that), determine which pieces you’ll actually prepare. 3) Begin constructing your realizations of pieces. Except for pieces that already are fully notated, every realization will be unique. In fact, different realizations of some pieces often will be unrecognizable as instances of the same piece. Each piece may generate its own questions. In some complex pieces, the number of questions easily could run into the dozens or even hundreds. Just keep asking the questions that seem necessary, such as the following:

• Should you perform this piece in whole or in part? Cage allows the performer to perform any amount of any piece. The entire rendition will last 33 minutes, but that doesn't mean you have to fill that entire duration!

• How will you determine the duration of various actions or parts of the piece? Sometimes, in order to figure this out, it’s necessary to determine how fast you can do something.

• How long will this piece be?

• Will you perform this piece at once from start to finish, or will you allow interruptions?

• If the duration of individual actions is free, how will you determine the length of any action? Will you decide during the performance or set a specific time in advance, perhaps via a chance operation?

• For certain theater pieces that call for choosing nouns or verbs, how will you choose the words?

• For certain theater pieces notated with plus or minus signs, how will you interpret these signs, as well as typefaces, or sizes of words or numbers?

• In pieces that require vocalization, what vocal style(s) will you use, especially if a piece calls for several different styles?

• If a piece calls for unspecified electronics, how will you determine what electronics to use? We'll bring an assortment of electronic gear for our own use, and the venue will have a full sound system, video projector, and lighting. But since it's hard to predict anyone else's needs for technology, we haven't requested any additional equipment besides a few vocal or all-purpose microphones and spare mixer channels. Due to constraints of time and resources, it's best if performers who want additional equipment provide it themselves.

• If a piece calls for technology that seems outdated (for example, knobs and dials for electronic settings on analog equipment), what will you substitute that would remain true to the spirit of Cage’s original directions?

• Will your performance be accompanied by other indeterminate music, as is allowed in Song Books? If so, what music? For how long? When will it begin and end?

• If you get stuck, what will you do? What process will you use to “get out of whatever cage you find yourself in,” to paraphrase Cage? Might you consult the I Ching, as he often did?

What to Avoid

It can be confusing or overwhelming to deal with so many possibilities. Moreover, occasionally Cage’s directions seem cryptic, inconsistent, or even obtuse; in such cases performers must make their best guess as to what to do. Keep in mind that so long as you follow the directions honestly and to the best of your ability, mistakes are unlikely, and easily forgiven. In fact, apart from technical errors in some pieces (for example, singing wrong notes in pieces that specify notes), most “mistakes” in performing Song Books stem from injecting too much of one’s ego, or taking an attitude of “anything goes” at the expense of disciplined action. It’s best to:

• Be faithful to your own plan; avoid departing from your planned activities or improvising. Arbitrary, spur-of-the-moment actions tend to undermine the non-attachment to personal tastes and habits that’s central to Cage’s aesthetic. Though disciplined improvisation can occur within your planned activities, Cage warned against it. • Focus on your own performance; avoid competing or interfering with your fellow performers. Keep in mind that each piece in Song Books is titled “solo,” and thus each performer is an independent “soloist” in the performance at large. This, and the next point listed, is an important social or political aspect of Song Books. • Pay no particular attention to the audience; proceed without trying to get noticed or gain approval. In general, Cage wished performers of Song Books to “be themselves,” going about their activities ordinarily, as in their everyday lives, rather than dramatically, “on stage.” Many performers, especially singers and actors accustomed to theatrical gestures, find it quite challenging and counterintuitive to perform impassively. • Prepare your score (detailed plan of your activities) carefully and with discipline. The process of preparing your performance is, in effect, part of the performance. • Resist the common temptation to automatically fill silence or “empty” space. Cage embraced both emptiness and abundance. If you ask a question and receive an answer to “do nothing,” that answer is as relevant as any other. If this happens to result, for example, in a performance with several minutes of silence or inactivity, then so be it.

Taking Chances

What are “Chance Operations,” associated so inextricably with Cage? They’re actions in which you ask a question without knowing the answer and use a method that determines the answer based essentially on randomness. You accept the result of whatever operation you performed. If for some reason you can’t accept an answer you’ve received, then ask another, different question, or change the framework in which you’re using chance. As mentioned earlier, how you frame your questions—which can be surprisingly difficult to decide—can make answers more productive. Obviously, repeating a chance operation over and over until you get a desired result would defeat the purpose of this entire process.

Chance operations may include throwing dice, tossing coins, drawing straws, pulling pieces of paper out of a hat, opening a book to a random page and letting your eye land on a random word, designing a computer program to produce unpredictable values, or using the I Ching, Cage’s favorite method. The I Ching, also known in English as the Book of Changes, is an influential ancient Chinese book of divination composed of 64 hexagrams. This oracle has been consulted for centuries to make decisions both basic and complex. Cage used the I Ching primarily as a way of generating numbers to which he assigned musical parameters or, for example, determining settings for "dials" in pieces that call for electronics.

Cage’s interest in chance operations paralleled his interest in freeing his art from his ego. Chance operations allowed him to remove much of the element of personal choice and desire from his works (though, notably, not all of them). Also, since he was interested in chaos, and especially in "art imitating nature in its manner of operation," chance operations allowed him to lessen his own control and thus free himself.

The use of randomness in art is widely misunderstood. Randomness is probably at the root of criticisms of Cage’s music as inherently unmusical. In fact, Cage refined his uses of chance operations depending on the kinds of tasks he was trying to accomplish, and revised his compositional methods until they produced results he found acceptable. Not just any random choices would do. (For a good example, drawn from how Cage created his composition Apartment House 1776, see the Introduction to James Pritchett’s excellent book The Music of John Cage.) While a thorough discussion of chance lies beyond the scope of this post, it’s worth emphasizing that the context in which randomness is used—akin to “asking the right question”—is important. Of course, not every question is amenable to being answered via chance operations. It seems best to use chance to make decisions where the results will be unpredictable, yet fall within an acceptable range. For a prosaic example, if in a restaurant with a vast menu you’re hungry but can’t decide what to eat, you might consider choosing at random, yet you’d certainly want to exclude foods that you strongly dislike or to which you’re allergic.

Anyway, in Song Books you can employ nearly any kind of chance operation, so long as you follow it with discipline. For instance, you could choose a number by asking yourself how many steps it takes to travel from point A to point B. You could choose a word by opening a randomly chosen book to a randomly chosen page. You could even ask a friend or stranger to make a decision for you. Or you could consult the I Ching about how to obtain answers or what kind of procedure to use. Chances are you’ll get an interesting and useful answer. See you soon in Sigulda!

“Devote myself/to asKing/queStions/Chance/determIned/answers’ll oPen/my mind to World around/at the same Time/chaNging my music/sElf-alteration not self-expression.” —John Cage

January 2012: California Institute of the Arts, Valencia

The Long Books: Performing at CalArts in February

The California Institute of the Arts will inaugurate its John Cage centennial celebration with a major performance of Cage’s Song Books on Sunday, 5 February 2012, from 4:00–8:00 p.m. The title Long Books has to do not only with length but also the inclusion in this performance of all 90 solos for voice—one or more renditions of each—a feat seldom attempted in the history of Song Books. Below is a short series of posts to inform participating performers and discuss various issues, such as . . .

Workshops

Many in the CalArts community know that the 2012 Interim Session will include a two-week intensive workshop, conducted by Jacqueline Bobak, Paul Berkolds, and Mark Bobak, geared toward preparing the February performance. While intended primarily for CalArts students (who are asked to enroll in the course per interim policies), the workshop sessions will be open, space permitting, to alumni and other artists who wish to join us in the performance, or who simply wish to observe the process of preparing it. The six sessions will be held on January 17, 19, 20, 23, 24, and 26 from 1:00–4:00 p.m. in room B318 for the first three sessions and the Wild Beast hall for the next three. By the way, another course, “The Music of Zen and Anarchy,” taught by composer Ulrich Krieger, would make a nice companion to our workshops, as would a course taught by visiting composer David Behrman on forms of indeterminate notation after 1950, featuring Cage’s Fontana Mix (which may be performed simultaneously with Song Books). Anyone interested in these courses should contact these instructors directly.

Super Book Sunday

With apologies to fans of both football and Cage: it honestly only now occurred to us that we inadvertently scheduled this performance on Super Bowl Sunday, with both events kicking off at about the same time! Perhaps some resourceful performers can figure out ways to incorporate this conflict into some solos—more creatively than, for example, the obvious choices of strategically and repeatedly performing Solo 44 (“Go off-stage at a normal speed, returning somewhat later also at a normal speed.”) as an excuse to go watch the game, or Solo 46 (“Prepare something to eat.”) as a means to enjoy some traditional refreshments. Here's an idea: some football play diagrams look like they'd translate remarkably well into stage directions.

What and When to Perform

Because we’d like to make sure all 90 solos are covered, and because it may be interesting to see how many renditions of which solos get performed, we’d like to ask every participant for a list of solos s/he plans to perform. From these lists we propose to make a “master list,” tantamount to a program note. If you’d like to perform but aren’t able to attend any of the aforementioned workshops, please let us know which solos you’ll be performing. Those acquainted with Song Books realize that just because a rendition is scheduled for four hours doesn’t mean the entire time has to be filled by any one performer, much less everyone. It will, however, be useful for logistical reasons to have some idea of when people plan to occupy what parts of the several performing spaces.

Spaces

Rather than being in a single venue like a concert hall, this rendition of Song Books will occupy CalArts’ Main Gallery, L-Shaped Gallery, Institute Main Reception area at the main entrance, Roy O. Disney Hall, and the foyer outside it. As Cage preferred, audience members will be able to roam throughout the spaces during the four-hour span, more like in an installation or “happening” than a concert. ("People are people and not plants.") Performers are encouraged to visit the spaces in advance to get some idea of where they’d like to be situated, especially if they plan to perform pieces that involve much moving around. We'll arrange some fixed “stations,” especially for performers who need electronics or certain props, during the workshops; performers who desire a particular space, or type of space, are asked to let us know soon.

Set-up and Rehearsal

While performances of Song Books typically aren’t rehearsed in the conventional sense, some “walking through” is desirable at least for logistical reasons and traffic control. Thus we’ve scheduled set-up and rehearsal time from noon to 3:00 p.m. on Sunday, February 5th. We don’t necessarily need an entire hour’s “free” space before the event begins at 4:00, but we’d like most everyone to be in place and ready to go, leaving ample time to take care of inevitable last-minute details. Performers who show up later risk finding their preferred spaces already occupied.

Tech Support

We’ll have a moderately elaborate audio system and capabilities for video projection, but performers who have technical requirements—notably those who are performing solos that include amplification or other electronics—are encouraged strongly to inquire about them well in advance. Because we’ll have only so many cables, microphones, mixer channels, and personnel to manage them, we probably won’t be able to meet everyone’s technical needs. In fact, we recommend that performers be as self-contained as possible, coming prepared with all the equipment they need—amplifiers, speakers, cables, etc.—unless they’ve made specific arrangements with us well in advance.

Recordings

By now readers may be familiar with our Call for Participation in the larger internet-based Vir2Ual Cage project. As long as performers are prepared for this live rendition, we invite them to take an opportunity to record their solos if they wish to contribute them to the archive from which further renditions of Song Books will be generated. While we can’t necessarily provide spaces or equipment for recording, we may be able to assist if we know far enough in advance. Much of the live event will be recorded for documentary purposes, but recording individual solos will be up to individual performers.

A Game Plan

With a little over ten days remaining before the Long Books event on Super Book Sunday, it’s time to review our plans, especially for participating performers who’ve not visited our workshops at CalArts. If you’ll be performing, please let us know the following as soon as possible:

• Which solos you’ll be performing (though not necessarily where or when during the four-hour span), so that we can reach our goal of covering at least parts of all ninety, and include your name in a sort of “master program note” for the performance.

• Where in the multiple performance spaces you’d like to perform. This doesn’t mean you can’t move around within a space or among spaces, but for logistical reasons we’d like to know where you’d prefer to be situated and how much room you’d like. As mentioned earlier, we’ll occupy CalArts’ Main Gallery, L-Shaped Gallery, reception area at the main entrance, Roy O. Disney Hall, and the foyer outside it. A couple of points to add: First, because the long walls of the Main Gallery will be occupied by an art exhibit, we’ll be somewhat limited to the center of the interior space. We also may use its balcony and the elevated “stage” at one end. Second, we have further information about the electronics in some spaces—see below.

• What, if any, equipment you request. Even if you’ll be completely self-contained, i.e., will provide and set up everything you need, please let us know if you’ll be using audio amplification or video projection. In the Main Gallery, we’ll have a 4-channel sound system with a 16-channel mixer, but as of this writing at least 12 of those channels are already spoken for. In Roy O. Disney Hall, we’ll have the built-in 5.1 surround sound system with at least 16 mixer channels available, as well as the built-in video projector and large screen. In the L-Shaped Gallery, we’ll have a stereo sound system with at least 8 mixer channels. We need to know who needs amplification—wireless microphones, handhelds, contact mics, or pickups. We also need to know how many cables, tables, and chairs to provide. We’ll do our best to accommodate requests, but the closer to the show we get, the less likely we’ll have sufficient time or resources.

On a less prosaic note, preparing a rendition of Song Books involves each performer making a score or plan of some kind. Once you decide which solos to perform, how do you decide when to perform them during the time span? Typically this is done via some kind of chance operation. But in our workshops we also discussed “mapping,” translating or scaling data of one type or range to another. We’ve written about mapping before, notably in this piece that demonstrates how the score to Solo 6 can be utilized to make a sort of algorithmic drawing. Mapping is central to certain kinds of computer-assisted composition and data sonification, where nearly any arbitrary information—numbers, letters, shapes, or whatnot—potentially can be translated into musical parameters or procedures. While much of Cage’s work involves indeterminacy of one kind or another, many of his compositions allow, if not require, some sort of mapping in order to realize them. In fact, such compositions as Fontana Mix consist not so much of scores, or descriptions of events, as methods to create scores or events.

At the beginning of this post we show a football play diagram not only because the Long Books will occur during this year’s Super Bowl, but genuinely to invite performers to consider creating their scores or plans via some kind of mapping. A football play diagram's vector-like arrows, numbers, and other symbols really could, somehow, be treated as a novel means to decide which solo to perform when and where. Or perhaps as a type of choreographic direction. Or a musical score. Utilizing a play diagram might not seem quite like consulting the I Ching, but each method offers a way to make decisions or get “unstuck” in one’s creative work, and thus is true to the spirit of John Cage.

December 2010: Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts, Czech Republic

Building Song Books in Brno

Note: An updated and somewhat expanded version of the following post was republished as the introduction to another Vir2Ual Cage workshop in Latvia in 2012. The post below is provided for historical completeness.

There’s a saying that finding the right answers may depend on asking the right questions. Interpreting Song Books typically requires asking many questions, beginning in this case with whether to join us in our upcoming performance. In Song Books, performers typically proceed by reading Cage’s directions, asking questions, determining a method for obtaining answers, acting on those answers in a disciplined manner, and repeating this process for as long as they’ve determined to do so.

In this post we offer information to help you decide whether you’d like to participate in this performance and, if so, how you might get started. The performance will be 64 minutes long, in the Music Hall of Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts on 7 December 2010 at 19:30.

Song Books may involve singers, actors, composers, dancers, instrumentalists, visual artists, and, in some cases, practically anyone, with or without artistic training. Its pieces, though they’re all titled “solo for voice,” range from directions for various actions (typing, entering or leaving the stage, playing games, projecting slides, producing feedback), to directions for creating and following scores, to virtuosic vocal compositions. There really is something that everyone can do, and hence anyone who’s willing to commit to following Cage’s directions—asking questions and following their answers in a disciplined manner—is welcome to participate.

In workshops in Brno from 3–5 December, we’ll decide various details of the performance, but we’ll also discuss individual pieces and answer questions that arise. Meanwhile, to help you decide whether to participate, or help you become more familiar with Song Books if you’ve already decided to participate, we suggest exploring several resources on this website: a biography of Cage and a description of Song Books; recorded excerpts and photos from previous performances; documents that categorize the many different pieces in Song Books; and discussions from a previous workshop.

Familiarize yourself with Cage’s score, starting with the “General Directions” then browsing throughout to get an idea of how the pieces look. The two-volume score is published by Henmar Press, available through C. F. Peters (Edition Peters, No. 6806a, b, and c, 1970). Unfortunately it’s quite expensive, but is available at many libraries.

Asking Questions

The following steps offer an example of how to approach Song Books. Often such steps are not linear; you might find yourself going back and forth among them, refining them, adding additional steps based on the pieces you’ve chosen, etc. The point is to develop a process, a system of rules—essentially an algorithm—and follow it with discipline.

1) Look through the score and determine which pieces you’re able and willing to perform. 2) Determine which pieces will be practical for you to prepare, given your resources and the amount of time available. Then, possibly via chance operations (see below for more about that), determine which pieces you’ll actually prepare. 3) Begin constructing your realizations of pieces. Except for pieces that already are fully notated, every performance will be unique. In fact, different realizations of some pieces often will be unrecognizable as instances of the same piece. Each piece may generate its own questions. In some complex pieces, the number of questions could easily run into the dozens or even hundreds. Just keep asking the questions that seem necessary, such as the following:

• Should you perform this piece in whole or in part? Cage allows the performer to perform any amount of any piece. • How will you determine the duration of various actions or parts of the piece? Sometimes, in order to determine this, it’s necessary to determine how fast you can do something. • How long will this piece be? • Will you perform this piece at once from start to finish, or will interruptions be possible? • If the duration of individual actions is free, how will you determine the length of any action? Will you decide during the performance or set a specific time—perhaps via a chance operation? • How will you determine the nouns or verbs for some of the theater pieces? • In certain theater pieces, how will you interpret the plus and minus signs, typefaces, or sizes of words or numbers? • In pieces that do require vocalization, what vocal style(s) will you use, especially if a piece calls for several different styles? • If a piece calls for unspecified electronics, how will you determine what electronics to use? (See the passage below about supplying and operating electronics.) • If a piece calls for technology that seems outdated (for example, knobs and dials for electronic settings), what will you substitute that would remain true to the spirit of Cage’s original directions? • Will your performance be accompanied by other indeterminate music, as is allowed in Song Books? If so, what music? For how long? When will it begin and end? • If you get stuck, what will you do? What process will you use to “get out of whatever cage you find yourself in?” Might you consult the I Ching, as Cage did?

What to Avoid

It can be confusing or overwhelming to deal with so many possibilities. Moreover, occasionally Cage’s directions seem cryptic, inconsistent, or even obtuse; in such cases performers must make their best guess as to what to do. Keep in mind that so long as you follow the directions honestly and to the best of your ability, mistakes are unlikely, and easily forgiven. In fact, apart from technical errors in some pieces (for example, singing wrong notes in pieces that specify notes), most “mistakes” in performing Song Books stem from injecting too much of one’s ego, or taking an attitude of “anything goes” at the expense of disciplined action. It’s best to:

• Be faithful to your own score; avoid departing from your planned activities or improvising. Arbitrary, spur-of-the-moment actions tend to undermine the non-attachment to personal tastes and habits that’s central to Cage’s aesthetic. Though disciplined improvisation can occur within your planned activities, Cage warned against it. • Focus on your own performance; avoid competing or interfering with your fellow performers. Keep in mind that each piece in Song Books is in fact a “solo,” and thus each performer is an independent “soloist” in the performance at large. This, and the next point listed, is an important social or political aspect of Song Books. • Pay no particular attention to the audience; proceed without trying to get noticed or gain approval. In general, Cage wished performers of Song Books to “be themselves,” going about their activities ordinarily, as in their everyday lives, rather than dramatically, “on stage.” • Prepare your score (your activities) carefully and with discipline. The process of preparing your performance is, in effect, part of the performance. • Resist the common temptation to automatically fill silence or “empty” space. Cage embraced both emptiness and abundance. If you ask a question and receive an answer to “do nothing,” that answer is as relevant as any other. If this happens to result, for example, in a performance with several minutes of silence or inactivity, then so be it.

Technology and Props

If you’d like to perform pieces that require instruments or electronics or technology (amplification, vocal processing, audio playback, video projection, etc.), please note that you’ll be responsible for supplying and operating any necessary equipment. The same goes for theatrical props. We’ll be bringing computers and other electronic gear, and have made arrangements for our own technical support, but we can’t foresee what other performers might want. If you’re considering electronics, try to be as self-sufficient as possible. Especially given the limited time and unforeseen number of performers, it’s best to keep technology simple. For example, basic amplification may be available, but anything that requires special equipment may be impractical.

Taking Chances

What are “Chance Operations,” associated so inextricably with Cage? They’re actions in which you ask a question without knowing the answer and use a method that determines the answer based essentially on randomness. You accept the result of whatever operation you performed. If you can’t accept an answer you’ve received, then ask another, different question, or change the framework in which you’re using chance. As mentioned earlier, how you frame your questions—which can be surprisingly difficult to decide—can make answers more productive. Obviously, repeating a chance operation over and over until you get a desired result would defeat the purpose of this entire process.

Chance operations may include throwing dice, tossing coins, drawing straws, pulling pieces of paper out of a hat, opening a book to a random page and letting your finger point to a random word, designing a computer program to produce random values, or using the I Ching, Cage’s favorite method. The I Ching, also known in English as the Book of Changes, is an ancient Chinese book of divination made up of 64 hexagrams. This oracle has been consulted for centuries to make decisions both basic and complex. Cage used the I Ching primarily as a way of generating numbers to which he assigned parameters, for example, determining settings for "dials" in pieces that call for electronics.

Cage’s interest in chance operations paralleled his interest in freeing his art from his ego. Chance operations allowed him to remove much of the element of personal choice and desire from his works (though notably not all of them). Also, since he was interested in chaos, and especially in "art imitating nature in its manner of operation," chance operations allowed him to lessen his own control and thus free himself.

Cage refined his uses of chance operations depending on the kinds of tasks he was trying to accomplish. The context in which randomness is used—akin to asking the right question—is important. A thorough discussion of chance lies beyond the scope of this post, but for the moment, we can acknowledge that not every question is amenable to being answered via chance operations. It seems best to use chance to make decisions where the results will be unpredictable, yet fall within an acceptable range. For example, if in a restaurant with a large menu you’re hungry but can’t decide what to eat, you might consider choosing at random, yet you’d certainly want to exclude foods that you strongly dislike or to which you’re allergic.

Anyway, in Song Books you can employ nearly any kind of chance operation, as long as you follow it rigorously. You could even decide to ask a friend or stranger to make certain decisions for you, or generate a number by asking yourself how many steps it takes to travel from point A to point B. Or you could consult the I Ching about how to obtain answers or what kind of procedure to use. Chances are you’ll get an interesting and useful answer.

After writing this blog post we decided to ask the I Ching: What other information do I need to provide? We drew Hexagram 44 (“coming to meet”) changing to Hexagram 33 (“retiring” or “yielding”), which together can be interpreted as “Providing: There is something useful available. It is not wrong to not let others benefit from it.” Truly, there are many other useful materials available, including Cage’s own extensive writings. But to get too bogged down in details might impede a performance from ever getting started. So, being faithful to the answer we received from the I Ching, here ends this post. See you in Brno in a few weeks!

“Devote myself/to asKing/queStions/Chance/determIned/answers’ll oPen/my mind to World around/at the same Time/chaNging my music/sElf-alteration not self-expression.” —John Cage

September 2009: Columbus College of Art and Design, Ohio

Vir2Ual Cage crystallized in the summer of 2009 when its founding members held a series of workshops at the Columbus College of Art and Design, where artist and energetic CCAD faculty member Michelle Lach marshalled an incredible array of resources and personnel to mount our performance in September 2009. The original version of this website was a blog launched at that time primarily as a means to organize meetings and communicate with workshop participants. Most of the site’s earliest posts are omitted here since they no longer serve their organizational purpose, but some of their content is republished because it raises certain issues pertinent to interpreting Song Books.

Some photos from the original site appear in this one, including a few of the distinctive performing venue, known at CCAD as the Design Studio: the former Byers Chrysler auto dealership. Several performers took full advantage of the space’s tremendous potential, what with its huge main floor, a large raised platform with its own stairway, a wide curved ramp to a lower-level doorway, a garage-style door leading to a storage space, a bridge that served as an audience entrance, and a stairway and small elevator that connected the bridge and main floor.

Designing September's Performance

Thanks to the over 20 artists who checked in with us during our visit in August. As the September 17th performance date draws near, we’d like to fill in some details and comment on some issues that arose during our discussions.

Place: After some back-and-forth, the venue is now conclusively the Design Studio on the 2nd floor of the Byers Building at 390 E. Broad Street in Columbus. Performers are encouraged to visit the space to consider how they might use it and perhaps "map" their activities.

Time: Two performances on Thursday September 17th, the first a 90-minute rendition starting at 12:00 noon and the second a 4-hour rendition starting at 6:00 p.m. The first is the one that will include live streaming to and from the Orpheus Institute in Belgium. The second may or may not incorporate material from the first, depending on participants’ decisions; it may be an extended version of the first show, a completely different rendition, or some combination of both.

Length: Many artists expressed concern about the second show’s duration. Though four hours are available, they need not be filled with continuous activity. In fact, since most renditions of Song Books tend to be quite lively, even chaotic, intervals of silence or inactivity can offer welcome respites. Every performer need not be “on stage” during the entire time. Performers who are “free,” having finished their planned activity, may become audience members themselves, including between solos if their plans of activities allow. No one is expected to perform continuously for anything like four hours; in fact, taking at least occasional breaks is recommended—the “leaving and returning” solos in Song Books come in handy for this! Four hours is indeed a stretch, but performers accustomed to long versions of such pieces tend to feel quite positive about staying “present” during them, allowing themselves to observe and just “be” when they’re not actively performing.

The same goes for the audience, which will be free not only to move about the space but also to enter or leave it at any point. They might, for example, sit near any of the performers’ "stations" or wander around and take in the action for a while, then leave and go have a snack or a drink or run an errand, then return for a while longer, and so on. The performance will feature no narrative or linear drama, so there’ll be no “plot” to follow or miss during absences. This is in accordance not only with our use of the space but also with Cage’s wishes. By the way, admission will be free; audience members won’t need a ticket to enter, but rather to leave!

A few other notes to performers: As soon as possible, we need to know with which solo(s) you’re going to be involved, in what part(s) of the space, and at what point(s) during the performance(s). We also need to know of any equipment or props that you’re not able to provide for yourself; we’ll do our best to find what you need. On the morning of Wednesday, September 16, we’ll be setting up and, at noon, testing the streaming between Ohio and Belgium. Though there’ll be no formal rehearsal as such, it’ll be desirable to review a simplified, condensed version of each rendition largely for “traffic control” in case multiple performers want to occupy the same space at the same time, akin to pedestrians in a potentially crowded intersection. To assist with this, we suggest that when you plan your performance, you mark specific locations for specific solos performed at certain times. Some performers—notably a dancer—will probably be moving around a lot, while others might not move much at all.

Speaking of intersection, the subject of interactivity among performers arose in our discussions. Each piece in Song Books is subtitled a solo and, even though some solos may at least in theory be realized by more than one person, they really are supposed to be solos in the sense of independent entities. Performers of any given solo should assume they’re by themselves, going about their planned activities but not interacting spontaneously with performers of other solos. Thus improvisation, or arbitrary departure from one’s planned activities, is discouraged. However, one’s plans for performance may include points at which decisions have to be made, along with methods for making those decisions—for example, visiting the “oracle” station that will be in the performance space.

A further point is that all solos in Song Books are supposed to coexist on an equal footing, not compete for attention. They need not be equal in terms of volume or space, but in theoretical or potential significance. Cage was critical of performers who tried to dominate a performance of Song Books. Beyond practical issues of traffic control, a central concern in Song Books is one’s relationship to other people. Performers are not to try to upstage their colleagues or inject themselves into others’ situations. Yet in many solos, especially those involving theater, the choices performers can make may well place their actions in unforeseen contexts, perhaps inadvertently dominating their environment. Even when performers choose their actions carefully, imagining their potential impact on stage in a way that may parallel decisions in everyday life, there may be a fine line between coexistence and interference. Indeed, the belief that one’s actions are intended in a spirit appropriate to a given solo is one of the many issues that Song Books elicits both on and off stage.