- Date: 1950
- Composer: John Cage
- Period: Modern (1910-1949)
Review
John Cage was known above all for questioning and often demolishing the basic assumptions on which most music rests. In this case the assumption Cage questions is a simple one: that the first thing one does in playing a piano part is to open the cover over the keyboard. Here, instead, the player sits before the closed keyboard and raps out rhythmic patterns with the fingertips or knuckles. The rhythms themselves are complex cycles of five and seven beats.Meanwhile, the vocal part seems independent of the drumming on the closed piano keyboard. The part is a vocalise -- that is, it is sung on vowels without words. The part is exactly notated, except that Cage suggests the singer transpose it to any pitch level that lies comfortably in a low range.
The musical effect of the vocalise is mysterious, and it has a sense of timelessness and purity that is perhaps a result of Cage's direction that it be sung "without vibrato, as in folk singing." There is a place where a rapid vocal tremolo on one note is called for, and some of the vowels are really "wah" sounds. One of the former effects is marked "like a pigeon," and one of the "wah" sounds "like a wild duck." This work is among the many pieces Cage wrote in the early part of his career for avant-garde dance companies, in this case for Louise Lippold. It lasts about two and a half minutes. ~ Joseph Stevenson, All Music Guide
