[silence] Evangelisti misconception?

[MITCHELL RENNER]

Josh, et al,
 
To add to what others have mentioned (and my response is of more general knowledge than specific), and then expound a bit for my own satisfaction, which may be of interest to others:
 
If you read much about Cage, you'll see that his main focus later on, after studying Zen Buddhism and the works of art historian Ananda K. Coomaraswamy ("The Transformation of Nature in Art" I believe was the book), was removing his own "intentions" from his work.  In order to do this, he used various means, such as rolling dice to divine from the I Ching, in the process of writing music.  Also, as you mention, one can improvise in any sort of 
manner, and Cage would have been just as disinterested in a Bach harpsichord solo as John Coltrane's later work, by themselves.  Bach and Coltrane both had strong underlying spiritual aspirations in their life and life's work, but that spirituality was, I would say, more devotional and celebratory, than observational and natural, in kind.   Ultimately, I'm led to believe that Cage in truth did not have a problem with the vehicle of improvisation as he did with self-intended notions controlling the work.  Can one improvise without the notion of the self interfering?
 
Why remove the intentions of the self, or self-proclaimed purpose, from art, to begin with?  To clear a path for work that invites "divine intervention".  Only when the self is removed from the operation can it become a vessel or channel for bringing together the divine (Heaven) and earthly.  This approach has its roots in Indian and Chinese philosophy.  Cage's work was the result of reconciling the post-Renaissance egocentric nature of Western art with the traditions of non-egocentric Eastern mysticism.
 
Going a little bit further with this, and I've brought this up before, the question in my mind has been, does this negation of self from artistry require aleatoric means (chance methods such as dice-rolling, coin tossing, yarrow sticks, random number generators) to create art?  
In the scheme of all things, I think this approach has historical significance in that it has caused us (those of us that have cared to notice) to question all of our own 
ideas of what art is.  It served as a kind of end-all to the Western art tradition (thus the cries of those claiming the avant-garde was " the end of music", much as the "death of 
the novel" has been bandied about).  Culturally, it has its parallel in the personal road of renunciation when one becomes a Buddhist, when one is basically required to 
unlearn everything one has been programmed to know from birth, and start from scratch, learning everything all over again, from a basis of observing and understanding the laws of karma, the dharma, in other words, how nature operates.  I don't think one would necessarily start rolling dice to decide what brands of groceries to buy, but that type of mentality kick-starts the process of renunciation, when one begins to question everything and all things that go into each moment and breath of life.  However, I contend that aleatoric devices are simply a contrived means, a game, a method of instruction, a training mechanism, so that the disciple using them, once having learned and understood the nature of all things, no longer needs such devices and then, as a master, is free to play and create (or improvise, to allude to the initial subject), with no instance of the self intervening any longer.  But until then, the artist/disciple needs the crutch, the training wheel, the routine, the prescribed methodry, the master bearing down upon him or her with stick at hand, and Western culture needs the contrived means, in order to advance towards the enlightened state of being, wherein heaven and earth do merge.  Like anything else, it's a process towards knowledge and understanding, and the devices themselves act as vehicles, as divining with chance operations, or hunting for mushrooms in a walk through the forest, serve as a way to meditate and reflect (is the mushroom the goal or the journey towards finding the mushroom, or both?).  But better all this than the common road of accepting everything as is, where one merely follows the herd unthinkingly, unconsciously, which is the way of most (and most art).
 
By the way, please forgive my pedantic nature, if anyone is offended...I'm merely a student myself.
 
Mitchell Renner
Peoria, IL
 
> why I broached the subject: what did Cage hear by 1937? 
For someone who grew up in the "Jazz Age," I don't recall 
him writing about going to clubs/dance halls to listen to 
swing bands, let's say. I've been looking for some link 
between Henry Cowell, Richard Buhlig and 
>It is interesting to note in Cage's 1937 essay: "[group 
improvisations having] already taken place...in hot jazz." 
It is somewhat of a clich? that "serious" composers look 
down upon jazz because jazz musicians "make it up as they 
go along" (ignoring the improvisational abilities of Bach, 
Mozart, etc.) Cage seems to welcome those musical 
abilities, at least in 1937.  >Josh Ronsen
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