John Cage - Water Walk
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- Опубликовано: 11 фев 2025
- John Cage performing "Water Walk" in January, 1960 on the popular TV show I've Got A Secret.
via WFMU:
blog.wfmu.org/f...
"At the time, Cage was teaching Experimental Composition at New York City's New School. Eight years beyond 4:33, he was (as our smoking MC informs us) the most controversial figure in the musical world at that time. His first performance on national television was originally scored to include five radios, but a union dispute on the CBS set prevented any of the radios from being plugged in to the wall. Cage gleefully smacks and tosses the radios instead of turning them on and off.
While treating Cage as something of a freak, the show also treats him fairly reverentially, cancelling the regular game show format to allow Cage the chance to perform his entire piece. "
"I consider laughter preferable to tears." -- What a great human.
Don't forget, Cage regarded all sounds as part of the performance, even the laughter of the audience. They were part of the moment.
John Cage expected (and encouraged) the laughter. He knew what he was doing was visually strange and the sounds were also pretty comical (and still are).
He then transforms the audience themselves into an instrument since it is random and unpredictable; something that Cage found essential in audio art.
Cage had a big sense of humor. He hated music snobbery.
What an awesome comment you covey yours words perfectly to describe the type of man is presume to be❤
This is great. Cage has a wry wit--he's completely serious about his music, but he knows there will be laughter, and he lets that be part of the performance. I notice also--he didn't look at the music once. He had the whole thing memorized.
He gets a vigorous round of applause, no hecklers and no booing. 👍
Cage was an absolute delight to work with, and I was highly privileged to be among those who have.
wowy!
Look at the way he subtly steps on one foot, then swings his other leg in front of the previous one and puts weight on that foot, only to repeat it again using the first leg, thus creating a sort of... walking effect. BRILLLLLIANT!!!
The music itself beguns around 5:40, but if you consider everything music, it just happens right now and forever.
Jeferson Torres. A perfect statement, considering that music exists naturally in the mind, heart and soul of everything.
Jeferson Torres: Perhaps one of my favourite comments on RUclips
This is why avant-garde music is absurd (among other reasons). If everything is art, NOTHING is art. When you consider everything music, you are not expanding music, you are KILLING it, because you are making it not different from what is not music.
Noise can be part of music (a recording of ambient sounds accompanying a piece, for example). But noise cannot be music itself. We humans have a term, "music" (different from "noise"), for a reason. Not because we are closed minds.
@@TheBoinaman1 In my opinion, which is so much or less important than yours: The thing is..... Art is in the eyes of the beholder. In this case in the ears of the listener. Music does not have to be something that can be described on a paper, shines immediately at you or awakes warm memories, it can be a lot more than that and as usual, have different meanings for different people. The problem here is not the music itself but our interpretation. We adapt to one specific role that music can have and we are not open minded to accept a completely different way of seeing, feeling, hearing and understanding music.
We can decide what our ears can hear and at certain point we are the ones who decide if it is art for us or just a guy eating a sandwich. As a conclusion, I´m not saying that I love avant-garde music, or even John Cage´s music,since from my prespective, this music was not created/developed to use "everything" as a state of art but better to search for new ways to question it and question YOU about it. So now.... how is it going to be? Is it it art? or poop?
@@TheBoinaman1 Nah. John Cage already teaches in 4'33" that so much of what we consider music in the first place (and always has been) relies on social cues and our willingness to shift our modes of hearing. Even a neighbor playing what people would call "conventional music" loudly at 3 in the morning would most likely be registered as noise-because you're not willing to listen to it as music, and the social contexts are all wrong.
Also, the idea of "avant-garde music" being all about the same thing is not only needlessly dismissive but also ridiculous. That single term covers many different approaches, philosophies, and sounds of music.
My first experience of Cage was in a bar, with people walking in and out while the performers made random yelps and screams and dragged a truck across the floor. It was undoubtedly the funniest and one of the best performances I've ever seen.
To me, music's purpose is to elicit an emotional response, and JC's work done right does exactly that
I once attended a concert of music by John Cage at the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid. The composer was present (ca. 1988-1991). Right before the end of the last piece, the powerful blast of a motorcycle could be heard out in the streets, together with a bell tolling to mark the hour (I think it was 9 p.m.) atop a nearby building (not sure if it was the Banco Central or Banco de España). I spoke to Mr. Cage about those random sounds that were not on the score and he agreed that they truly enhanced the listening experience. More recently (December 2012), also in Madrid, I listened to his Sonates and Interluddes for prepared piano by a young French pianist, Bertrand Chamayou. It was great.
Was he nice? How was it meeting him?
EppcoFan51 Yes, he was nice, easygoing, not very tall (I'm 5' 9" and he was smaller). I rarely ask for autographs but he did sign my concert program. My older daughter (21) freaks out whenever I put on a CD by Cage. She can't get over the strange noises in his music. In my prior comment, it's Sonatas and Interludes. My computer underlines every word because it expects me to be writing in Spanish, so typoes get by.
Michel Angstadt I guess. It must've been a nice experience for you to see the dude and his work. I'm 16 years old, and I love his music too. Why once, I listened to Williams Mix, and I experienced a whole new world of art, sound, silence, and avantgarde creativity, and if John Cage were still alive, or at least recreated from the ashes of the dead, I would've congratulated him for inventing a lot of creative works that still survive today.
Joseph Evans John Cage changed my conception of what is aceptable in the concert hall. I have always been very fussy about unharmonic noise in the concert hall, in other words the noise made by the audience (candy wrappers, women massaging their handbag, people fluttering through the concert program, chattering, heavy breathing, even the beat of a quartz watch behind or beside me). My wife stopped going with me to concerts because she couldn't stand my sign language asking people to keep quiet. Although Cage is best when performed live, I do have a few recordings by him (piano and voice, piano and violin, prepared piano, piano alone, 11 CDs altogether). I envy your age and curiosity (I had never heard of John Cage when I was 16). There's an awful lot to be appreciated out there in the world of culture. This said, besides classical music, contemporary music, jazz, blues and rock and roll, I can also enjoy populat music of the type so often found here on RUclips, for instance Carly Rae Jepsen, that kind of stuff :)
Joseph Evans "Acceptable" in the concert hall. My spell check underscores everything I write in English, making it hard for me to notice typoes.
Cage was born 100 years ago today. This certainly made me smile!
So Cage, basically, displayed every state of matter water can exist in, as well as the most common applications of water in modern life, all in musical form. That is rather brilliant.
Dude... you are out of your mind
DHMO moment
"Musical form."
Just noticed: at 7.00 he flipped the blender switch, and it was supposed to noisily blend the ice cubes in it. But they were too large, and it froze, just hummed. He left it on and after 51 seconds of being jammed, smoke began to come out of the side at 7:51. He noticed and turned it off at 8:00 but not before the cameraman gave the smoke a close up.
And it works brilliantly!
@@funnyusername8635 My farts are brilliant music too. Wanna buy the record?
I expected a very bad response from the audience, but actually the laughter plus aplause, I think, it was much more that he could expect, I'm delighted with this reactions, and as some other commented here, he made them part of the show. I'm not a fan of his music, but I deeply respect him for his experimentations
I recommend listening to this at 4:50am while you're half asleep- as I just did. It makes you feel like you're submerged in a bathtub, someone is watching a TV sitcom in the next room, there's a little bird outside the window that chirps sporadically, and at one point somebody comes in the bathroom to take a piss. Reminds me of when I used to live at home with my family.
I think you couldn't be more right! It takes a genius to recognize a genius. Mr. Cage was all alone that night! Thank you for this wonderful contribution!
OK, This is just unbelievably funny. Especially when he mentions what instruments he uses in this piece. But I give him credit for experimenting with different sounds and I find it quite clever!
I love the fact that he encourages hearing everyday sounds as music. It's inspirational for both musicians and listeners alike.
"you needn't call it music if the term shocks you" - john cage
"In the 50s, for one brief moment--six weeks, maybe--nobody understood art. That's why it all happened." (Morton Feldman)
Add tv static and audience laughter to the music along with a 5-sec whiskey ad with Questlove! Rubber duck not well micked. I wonder how many viewers then were aware that Cage was perhaps the most important avant-garde composer of his era. This is a treat!
Both with and without the video, this performance is art at its "freshest" and most alive. It's wonderful to be reminded how music embarked on the journey which led to the present landscape's artistic choice and diversity. Thank you for posting Mr Cage at his most normal, uncaged.
This is going to be stuck in my head all day.
Audiences haven't changed much -- instead of laughter, they chatter.
Thank you for posting this.
Great work. I believe that more important than what it sounds it is when it sounds. We don't have to forget that for Cage every sound has equal value. The organization of them transforms this perfomance into a beautiful musical work. Thank you for sharing it with us.
The originality is off the charts. arf
How could anyone not love John Cage, his performances are so witty, humorous and yet very artistic in the meaning. I totally agree with Jaydoggy531
From what came through the fuzz, it sounded beautiful. I also couldn't stop silent laughter: a comician, my God! Feeling overwhelmed at my lack of qualification for using the cutting edge studio that is my kitchen, I abandon it and the internet now.
I love the lack unnecessary surface-level flashiness. Seemed more real and raw. If a regular late night show is a movie, this was more like watching a play, just televised. Really cool
Whoa! IT WAS SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO BEAUTIFUL!!!!!!!!!!!!! AWESOME PERFORMANCE! HOW I WISH THE PEOPLE/AUDIENCE BACK THEN, WATCHING THIS SHOW LIVE...DID NOT LAUGH! IT WAS SO SURREAL, RHYTHMIC, AVANT-GARDE DURING HIS TIME!
Love you John Cage!
I appreciate the fact he has the humility not to be phased by the audience laughing at what he considers a serious piece of music.
Amazing that something like this was broadcast on 'regular' tv - and that we can now watch it on RUclips! Many thanks for sharing, holotone!
I was expecting him to walk on water as the title suggests
the fact that this made it onto post-war American national television is astounding
Thank you so much for posting this. 5 starts to the brilliant Mr. Cage - No starts for unions.
Music is an art form comprised of sound and/or silence. All music is sound, but not all sound is music. Any sound can be music, though. That's just what I think.
Also, before you say what I think you're going to say, this piece does in fact have melody, harmony, and rhythm, in the loosest senses possible.
I love the gigantic 1960 tape recorder. Possibly an Ampex, from the historic Redwood City, CA, now in Silicon Valley. The Ampex sign has been left standing by the freeway.
Amazing - thankyou so much for uploading this. Wow. What a moment .
I'm impressed this has gotten over 375k views! Few people are patient and open minded enough to sit through 9 minutes of what this has to offer.
someone told me my work was like john cage today and wow, what a compliment, he is amazing
His sounds are remarkable. He has a true ear for coordinating sound into a functional piece. I fell in love with Cage after viewing some of the youtubes.
I studied with John cage. Brilliant, philosophical, a giant of modern music, a sincerely nice and good person: read his books!!!
so cool!
what an attentive audience! i like this recording of the piece, the laughter and the hiss of the old-school recording equipment make the piece all the more interesting.
laughter is found sonic art that is timed and after watching this it will never sound the same to me ever again.
Absolutely wonderful
The laughter actually gives it a more horrifying feel. It's absolutely absurd and wonderful.
I am currently reading the book SILENCE and I especially like the ch. Zen and foward from there. I like it because I am on the quest as well and am trying to mitigate dualities. One can always tell how one is progressing by, as Cage says, how bothered we are now about things and people that really use to pester us before. Happy Zen-ing!!
Great! Thank you very much for this video.
A piece of history that we might slowly start to grasp the honesty of Mr.Cage over 50 years later? He´s so clever.
I love Cage so much.
I love how he just plays one random dominant seventh chord at 7:00 and then hits the piano with the fallboard.
It literally says "Play Dominant 7th chord" and then "Slam Lid" or something in the score... Three even is a score video of it on RUclips
What kind of cadence is that?
@@segmentsAndCurves Cage-dence.
@@Elintasokas It's 1AM.
I desperately need this.
Thanks for reminding me to go to sleep.
I will say this in closing about the man love him or hate him--he really gets some of the most liveliest artistic debates started that do not end in a day--if you are into electronica,loops,sampling, avante garde/chance approaches to constructing and de-constructing forms and musical boundaries--and even how one sees Life and Art...then he is indeed one of the pioneers along with Varese! Schoenberg is extremely melodic in this context...
I like this type of music, and if you listen the people laughing, you can add it to the performance, but... this type of music deserves a serious appreciation
This is grand on so many levels, not the least of which is that the union gets in the way of proper performance of the piece! Ha! Very funny, and just brilliant. He always struck me as an incredibly generous and kind man.
The auidence laughter is another sound that becomes part of the piece. Amazing insight to Cage
I love this. The whole concept and the look of John Cage himself doing the water walk.
I'm here because of my modules. Who's with me?
me too😂😌
Ehem baka naman
Samee
@@shainemariearasa6245 haha0
@@aaronmagno4656 ang hirap Lalo nat bukas na namin to i pass😢
Excellent! Thank you so much for posting this!
a real blessing to see this! so joyful--i agree w/ the post before mine - Cage treated the audience w/ great respect and gave them and us (thank you youtube) a wonderful gift.
Happy 100th Anniversary, Master JC !
Sadly there is no actual music. It's a bunch of sounds he finds pleasant to hear, and so he argues that any sound is music.
I saw John Cage "in concert" at Beaver College (now Arcadia) in the Philadelphia area. He was a very unusual musician, and it was a quite memorable experience. The audience was sometimes respectful, but sometimes they'd heckle him (probably in some ways deservedly so.) Very cool to see this video on RUclips.
This is art. Close your eyes and listen to it after watching it and you'll see why.
That is precisely what i did. I found it rather appealing that way. Rather than watching him preform, I found that just listening with my eyes closed, I could construct my own idea of what could be happening with this music being played. As if there were music played like theme songs during moments in our lives. I found it to be eerie and dark, even the audiences laughter seemed to fit. I enjoyed it.
I enjoyed this, it's obvious that this art form has really taken strides over the last 47 years.
no doubt, the coolest thing i've seen on youtube yet.
Wow, I've recently discovered John Cage, and I recall an almost identical video with Frank Zappa and a bicycle years later. Have you seen that? Zappa was young and in a suit and behaving almost exactly the same. Ignoring the laughter. Doing his thang. Thanks for posting this. I'll try and find the Zappa video again.
My appreciation of his work has nothing to do with the innovation, but with the deft skill with which it is executed. Every sound is intentional, in time, and appears effortless. It would be like a single man performing all the parts in a bell choir. The results may not be aesthetically pleasing to everyone, but it is no less impressive for it.
If you think perform the equal, I encourage you to do so and post the video. I'd be happy to watch.
The everyday world is a musical world. Your appliances hum a note, your footsteps form a beat, etc. These noises are only banal because we make them banal.
John Cage was a genius.
I think music is supposed to stimulate the listeners mind...and this is exactly what Cage has achieved with this.
For much of his life he followed Zen, which concerns itself with mindful listening, seeing, and doing, and he wanted his audiences to be mindful of - to pay full attention to - the sounds (as well as sights and other sensory inputs) around them and to think about their ideas of what constituted "music."
Hats off to canceling the game and making this about the composition! 💕🙏🏻
see that's what bums me out.
I just got into John Cage. Literally like 5 minutes ago. Immediately I know that he is an interesting, unique character, one that I am completely stunned by, interested in, but can also relate to. He seems like a happy man too, it's just a bummer to see people always talking shit in the comments. Like, why you gotta be such snot-nosed babies? It's John Cage, respect the man.
I like the fact that the Presenter did not patronise him in anyway, even telling him that some people would laugh. most presenters would have taken great delight in making fun of Cage, especially at this time period. Also interesting, is how Cage is not in the least bit Po faced and seems ready to laugh at himself as well.
The music is wonderful especially when you just listen to the clip instead of watching to see what he was doing
Yeah, I totally agree to that. Cage knew he was going to produce laughter, though the laughs sound "unwanted". And I still think if Cage would have recorded the composition in a studio, he would have left it without the laughter... so maybe the laughter can be seen as a part of the live-performance and not of the composition in it's "core". Agree?
I love how he broke through barriers. He had the audience is such a state of anticipation that they laughed as he routinely took a sip of water. Brilliant.
Cage had a spooky voice. If the experimental music didn't work out he could have made a good living filling in for Vincent Price :)
he changed the way we discover sounds and produce music. A genuis.
Life is music to those who listen.
Holy carp! that is a good philosophy
when such an artist has got this sense of autohirony, we're quite in heaven!!!
Note that he turns on the blender at 6:59, but the rotor jams on what seems to be ice cubes in the pitcher. Subsequently, it seems that blender's motor winding overheats severely, evidenced by the smoke present at 7:37 and then even more apparent at 7:40 and 7:49. He turns it off at 8:00.
Big thank you for sharing!
I loved it!
Claude
Wow, a great man, doing a serious job and he knows he is doing a serious job, still bearing the laughter ...
Great video thank you!!!! An amazing piece of history documented here.
i bet the audience laughed so hard they had tears in their eyes, that makes it a part of the water walk
i've never seen this before, but it's great. every day events and sounds are music! and the bit with the radios is priceless. too bad this piece isn't performed more often.
He is so Abstract! This is Art
I'm kinda dissapointed that the audience took the possible out of him. He's pretty talented. Extremely ahead of his time.
Is interesting to see how people say "free your heads and your minds" but all the comments of people that didnt enjoy this video have been ranked as poor comments and as spam. Well they are free to feel and think anyway they want. I mean, if john cage was alive, he would like to read ALL the coments.
Anyway, the man was a genius
Thanks for making this available. Absolutely stunning and moving in so many ways.
thx for posting this
Charming man, brilliant thinker, a delight.
Bravo John, bis! bis!
He had quite a flair for performance.
That was BEAUTIFUL!!! I feel so fortunate to have heard him lecture @ Harvard in the late 1980s.
this is amazing
if you are a big john cage fan you will love
gabriel williams - the dissociation
Thus, the sound can be correctly used within a musical composition. Therefor, what the controversy regarding John Cage comes down to, is that there is a particular reason why instruments such as violin, flute, French Horn amongst others, were created with precisely their particular form. That reason is because they produce sound with a great degree of "quality" in its tonality
I was thinking that exact same thing all the way through this. They gave up the format of the game show just to let him play. unbelievable.
"I consider laughter preferable to tears", John Cage
I agree with halfdemon88, and I think a better place to start would be with John Cage's Sonatas for Prepared Piano, have a listen to them, see what you think.
This is music. It has a purpose, it is expressive, and it is organized sound.
I agree. I enjoyed this performance and found it quite funny at the same time.
Carl Stalling is worth mentioning here being a very prolific avante garde orchestrator/composer/arranger employing various elements of Wagner,Jazz,Exotica,Show tunes and various sound effects into this brilliant blend of orchestrated cartoon music for many of Warner Brothers animated productions including Bugs Bunny.