[silence] Fwd: Petr Kotik's Umbilical Cord

[Joseph Zitt]

On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 3:56 AM, Glenn Freeman <glenn@ogreogress.com> wrote:
> Joe Zitt wrote: "Working from a Jewish perspective, of course, I have
> respect for both oral and written traditions and the balance between
> each."
> I have no idea what is meant by "Jewish perspective, of course" in the
> context of this discussion ... please explain how it applies.

Here's a good introduction:
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/Oral_Law.html

In this discussion, one might compare the Written Law to Cage's
written scores, and the Oral Law to the information and experience
gained, though not necessarily documented yet, by people such as Petr
and others on this list who did get to work with him.

For example, my own sole interaction with Cage involved his saying a
single word, but it cleared up a question for me: when, after one of
his last performances in New York, I asked him whether the pitches
that he used in his performance of a section of Empty Words were
following a system or improvised, he said "Improvised." (And, come to
think of it, I don't think I'd ever logged that here.)

> In terms of history, power, greed, fiction and 'oral traditions' I
> suggest a film called "Joe Gould's Secret (2000)".
> For Petr Kotik to suggest that because we did not know Cage personally
> we are somehow different is true. But to also suggest Cage was unable
> to write his ideas down on paper for future performers (with no prior
> knowledge of any 'oral tradition') to ponder and come to their own
> equally valid conclusions and interpretations is untrue. I doubt Cage
> would much enjoy a single approach to his work passed down in such a
> fanatical, even religious, fashion ... and with references to an 'oral
> tradition'.

Such doubt is understandable. But I wonder how it relates to Cage's
involvement in Zen Buddhism, which, as I understand it, has a
tradition of oral transmission of teachings.

> I hope someday to hear the Berlin Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, etc.
> perform 103, 108 or Twenty-Six, Twenty-Eight and Twenty-Nine [Eighty-
> Three], etc., without a conductor AND/THUS as written. It would be
> another equally valid approach, in addition to Kotik's 103.
> Understand? Recordings are a different matter.

On this we differ.

> To repeat the only commentary in the first email:
> "I was born the year Kotik met Cage. According to Kotik it is unlikely
> I will find an approach to Cage's music and he is correct. It is
> highly unlikely we will ever find ONE (an) approach to Cage's music."

Yes. Which would not be the case were perfect information encoded in the scores.