Skip to main content

Listening Report to John Cage – Water Walk

 

I tried to approach this special musical piece Water Walk by John Cage in two different ways. First, I watched the video and tried to get some initial thoughts about it. But the television show atmosphere made it difficult to concentrate only on the music. Listening to the piece a second time, I tried to think of anything it could remind me of. So I started the video a second time and immediately thought of science fiction television shows like Star Trek. It felt hard and challenging to think of this piece in a serious way. It does not feel like music to me because of the lack of a melody. At least for me no melody is recognizable. I could imagine it as a background sound for something else. While listening, I wondered if John Cage really considered this to be music and how he could stay serious during the whole act. The laughing audience especially disturbed my attention. But the kind of sarcastic explanation of the name Water Walk from John Cage himself almost impeded my listening experience. Nonetheless it did manipulate my subconscious by making me think of gentle and soft burbling water in a small stream.

Throughout watching and listening simultaneously I thought of it as a comedic or parodistic sketch. Because seeing him creating the sounds kills the mysterious and horror movie vibe I felt from the very beginning of the piece.

 It definitely has a comedic element, because it is a type of music which nobody would expect the first time listening. Especially due to the mixture of instruments and random objects that are being used to make the sounds with water. To me, it sounds like a collection of sounds created by diverse objects in the first encounter with water. What makes it interesting to me is the variations of sound one can make with water. Sometimes it sounded like a thunderstorm approaching. Other times it reminded me of a cat running around the house and accidentally knocking over objects or running over the piano when the clinking sound appeared. It is a compilation of sounds which I would not consider as music when I heard it for the first time. The fact that every little sound is calculated and John Cage takes the time while producing his piece made me question if you could always generate the same emotions and sensations. And I asked myself if John Cage was capable of consistently creating the same sounds while knocking over the objects? I guess that wasn't always possible and that made every performance unique. However, I still don't understand the artistic ambition behind it.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Listening Report on John Oswald: Plexure

 Sarah Kumar Dr. Bernd Herzogenrath The Future of (American) Music 06 Mar. 2023 Listening Report on John Oswald: Plexure According to John Oswald, “[a] plunderphone is a recognizable sonic quote, using the actual sound of something familiar which has already been recorded” (Lecture Slides 18). However, only if the source stays recognizable can it be called plunderphonics. In his album Plexure , several songs are played back and mixed together, thus creating a new sound. This is interesting because while the excerpts of songs that are used are recognizable or at least sound familiar to some degree, played backwards and mashed up as they are in Plexure , they create a new sound. Like on the cover of the album, on which a collage making up a man can be seen, the mixing of different songs played backwards gives a new feeling to something known. The way the songs are mixed makes them unintelligible. The meaning of the words of the original recordings are not able to be compr...

John Cage – Inlets

  This does not sound like music to me. Depending on the interpretation of different players or performers, this piece will always sound different. In this case, it sounds to me like someone is walking through a cave with water at the bottom, dragging their feet through it. Sometimes it sounds like water in a toilet bowl, especially when we hear the water in a bigger shell being swished around. These sounds are relaxing in the background, it is like a gentle stream of water. I just wonder what went through the head of the composer while writing this piece. But I guess he had some experimental ideas that are interesting to try out. Those shells are quite pretty, I have never seen such big ones that are not broken. I was surprised when something else happened towards the end of the piece. That tone which came out of the one shell was so clear, it sounded like a trumpet. I didn’t know that shells can sound like that. It was quite beautiful. It was a nice way to end the piece. I di...

William Basinski – The Disintegration Loops III

  The Disintegration Loops is a quartet of albums published in 2002 and 2003 by American avant-garde composer William Basinski. The pieces are made up of tape loop recordings that were played over time, with noise and crackles rising as the tape deteriorated. Basinski noticed this effect when attempting to convert his older recordings to digital format. The completion of the recordings coincided with the September 11, 2001 events, which Basinski witnessed and adds a deeper meaning to the composition. The composition is fascinating in many ways and makes the listener lose track of time. The tape loop recording had a very calming effect on me and put me in a trance-like state when I listened to it in its entirety. The tape loop is really soothing, so much so that I didn't even notice the loss of quality when I first listened to it. It makes you forget about time and allows you to really get into the piece capturing the calmness it exudes. You forget or don't really notice how i...