The idea of game in works of John Cage and in the environment of free improvisation

Authors

  • Rogério Luiz Moraes Costa University of São Paulo

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.35699/2317-6377.2009.54679

Keywords:

John Cage, free improvisation, game, music performance, creative processes, indeterminacy and chance

Abstract

This text examines the main differences in approaching the role of interpreters in the realization of two different game proposals. Therefore, some works of John Cage and practices of groups active in the free improvisation music are compared, especially the group Akronon (to which the author of this article is a member). It is demonstrated that Cage’s proposals, which are located in a conceptual plan and the proposals of free improvisation, which depart from a practice based on experimental interactive empirical manipulation of the sounds, result in very different conceptions about the role of interpreter. From this perspective, the vital and dynamic nature of free improvisation is stated, which can be conceived as a sort of ideal game according to a concept proposed by the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze.

Author Biography

  • Rogério Luiz Moraes Costa, University of São Paulo

    Rogério Luiz Moraes Costa is a professor, composer, and performer, and a founding member of the Akronon group for free improvisation (saxophones and flutes). He founded and was a member of the Brazilian jazz group Aquilo Del Nisso for 15 years. He graduated with a degree in Music Education (1982) from the Department of Music at ECA-USP, where he studied composition with professors Willy Correa de Oliveira and Gilberto Mendes. He earned a master's degree from the Department of Music at ECA-USP with the thesis “Suite Improviso - the construction of improvisation: composition and interpretation in interactive practices.” He completed his doctorate in the Department of Communication and Semiotics at PUC-SP with the dissertation “The Musician as Medium and the Territories of Free Improvisation.” He is currently a professor of theoretical subjects and Coordinator of the Undergraduate Program in the Department of Music at ECA-USP. He also teaches in the graduate program in the same department.

References

BOULEZ, Pierre, Apontamentos de um aprendiz, Stella Moutinho, et al, trad. São Paulo: Perspectiva, 1995 (do original em francês Releves d’apprenti, 1966).

BRITTO, Beatriz de Araújo, Arte e mídia – A ação do grupo Oi Nóis Aqui Traveiz como espaço de resistência e suas recepções na mídia, Tese de doutorado apresentada à PUC-SP, 2007.

CAESAR, Rodolfo, O tímpano é uma tela? in Anais do IV Fórum CLM –USP, São Paulo: Ed. ECA, 2004.

CAMPOS, Augusto, Música de Invenção. São Paulo: Perspectiva, 1998.

COSTA, Rogério Luiz Moraes, O músico enquanto meio e os territórios da livre improvisação, Tese apresentada ao curso de Doutorado do Programa de Comunicação e Semiótica da PUC-SP, 2002.

DEL POZZO, Maria Helena, Da forma aberta à indeterminação: processos de utilização do acaso na música brasileira para piano, Tese de doutorado apresentada ao IA - Unicamp, 2007.

ECO, Humberto, A obra aberta, Sebastião Uchoa Leite, trad. São Paulo: Perspectiva, 1976 (do original em italiano Opera Aperta, 1958).

HUIZINGA, Johan, Homo Ludens, São Paulo: Perspectiva, 1993.

KOSTELANETZ, Richard. John Cage-Writer – Selected Texts. New York: Cooper Square Press, 2000.

LOCHHEAD, Judy & Joseph Auner (Eds.). Postmodern Music / Postmodern Thought. New York & London: Routledge, 2002, 372pp.

NATTIEZ, Jean-Jacques (org.), The Boulez-Cage Correspondence/documents collected. Translation Robert Samuels. New York: Syndicate of the University of Cambridge, 1993.

RODRIGUES, Rodrigo Fonseca e, A imagem da escuta: os sites person-to-person e os compositores heterônimos, Tese apresentada ao Curso de Doutorado do Programa de Comunicação e Semiótica da PUC-SP, 2007.

Downloads

Published

2009-01-01

Issue

No. 19 (2009): General Topics

Section

Articles in Portuguese/Spanish

License

Copyright (c) 2009 Per Musi

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Licença Creative Commons
Except where otherwise noted, contents on this site are licensed under a  Creative Commons - Atribuição 4.0 Internacional.

How to Cite

“The Idea of Game in Works of John Cage and in the Environment of Free Improvisation”. 2009. Per Musi, no. 19 (January): 83-90. https://doi.org/10.35699/2317-6377.2009.54679.

Most read articles by the same author(s)