[silence] to musicate language

[Ralph Lichtensteiger]

language = music

"to musicate language"

"Syntax, like government, can only be obeyed.   It is
therefore of no use except when you
have something particular to command
such as: Go buy me a bunch of carrots."
— John Cage M 215

dictionary:
syntax |ˈsinˌtaks| |ˌsɪnˈtøks| |ˌsɪntaks|
noun
the arrangement of words and phrases to create well-formed sentences  
in a language : the syntax of English.
• a set of rules for or an analysis of this : generative syntax.
• the branch of linguistics that deals with this.

When, in the early seventies, the French philosopher Daniel Charles  
posed the question, "Aren't your lectures, for examples, musical  
works in the manner of the different chapters of Walden?", Cage  
replied, "They are when sounds are words. But I must say that I have  
not yet carried language to the point to which I have taken musical  
sounds. . . . I hope to make something other than language from it."  
And he adds, "It is that aspect, the impossibility of language, that  
interests me at present." Again, in a later exchange, when Charles  
remarks, "You propose to musicate language; you want language to be  
heard as music," Cage responds, "I hope to let words exist, as I have  
tried to let sounds exist" (For the Birds 113, 151). (2)
— The Music of Verbal Space: John Cage's "What You Say" by Marjorie  
Perloff

http://www.ubu.com/papers/perloff02.html

I think this Cagean aspect "to musicate language" is different in  
nature from Oulipo principle.

kind regards,
ralph li
http://www.lichtensteiger.de/diary.html
http://time4time.blogspot.com/

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