Uncategorized » David MacDonald, composer

Today is John Cage’s birthday, and it’s a big one. There are lots of composers, musicians, and writers who are honoring him today, this month, and this year. My little tribute to Cage is this set of three mesostics ¹ on his name. Cage constructed his mesostics using a lot of different methods during his lifetime, often using literary works for inspiration. I’ll not delve much deeper into my methodology here as not to bore you any further, other than to say that the sources for these words are taken from Wikipedia articles, chosen with the help of the “Random Article” feature (details below).

Three Mesostics for John Cage
by David MacDonald
5 September 2012

1
                  conJecture,
                 althOugh unclear,
             establisHed
                 liviNg

                     Connections
                  in Addition to
              buildinG local
                   tiEs.




2
                  subJect
                    tO a
                    gHostly
              imprisoNment when a 

                   faCility
                 in mArrakech
   have been observinG
                   thE embassy




3
                   obJective:
                   crOssing
                 furtHer
            to the laNd

    transmitting the Codewords.
                     Advance very quickly
                 alonG
                   thE division

If you’re really curious, here are my source articles, in order:

Enough about me. Go write your own!

Notes:

If you’re not sure what mesostics are, fear not. They’re just poems. Cage was particularly fond of them, and wrote hundreds of them during his lifetime for lots of purposes, including just to playfully communicate with friends. You can read about them here, here, or here. ↩

First day of school here at Grand Valley State. In honor of that, I thought I’d share some more from this music appreciation text. I have a feeling that “Dave argues with a textbook” might become a running series here on the blog. We’ll see. Just a few grafs after the quote from my last post, I found this gem.

Briefly defined, music [emphasis in original] is the rational organization of sounds and silences passing through time. Tones must be arranged in some consistent, logical, and (usually) pleasing way before we can call these sounds “music” instead of just noise.

Seriously? We’re still using a value judgement in the definition of an art form? Rational, logical, and pleasing are a matter of cultural inheritance and personal taste. Also, “just” noise? Dr. Wright, what the heck is wrong with noise? Some people like it so much they make music out of it! Definitions like this remind me of early DSM definitions of homosexuality as a psychological disorder. Over 40 years after Stonewall, the Psychology world has since corrected their initial mistake. Almost 60 years after Cage’s 4’33″, at least some musicologists like Dr. Wright are still working things out.

[Dr. Craig M. Wright] is the author of numerous scholarly books and articles on composers ranging from Leoninus to Bach. [hyperlinks added]

Whoa! All the way to Bach? That’s a little edgy for me. Can we pull it back to Lully?

So here’s the thing. I have this domain registered with GoDaddy. I’m in the process of transferring it to Hover. The Domain Name System used by the web is extremely complicated and fascinating (if extremely geeky) to read about. The thing is, it can take up to 48-hours for changes in a domain registration to make it to all the DNS servers around the world, so this site may be down for up to 48 hours (probably not that long) in the near future. Don’t worry, I haven’t gone anywhere. If you’re curious why I’m moving, read on. Otherwise, thus endeth the blog post.

Tech-wise, GoDaddy is good enough for me, and it’s relatively cheap. The other side of that is their system of upselling. They make you click through page after page of crap you don’t need when checking out. If you use them, you seriously need to be careful not to spend hundreds on crap you don’t need. That kind of bothers me. It’s not how business should work, and I resent that they try to take advantage of people who don’t know any better. They’re like the bad auto mechanics who prey on a customer’s lack of car knowledge just because they can, providing unneeded oil changes, belt replacements, filter replacements, etc. I’m no computer wiz, but I know that I don’t need an SSL certificate for this site. I’ll tell YOU what I need. Also, GoDaddy’s ads make me feel sleazy.

People that know me know how much I love WordPress. It’s taken a while, but I’ve finally ditched my old static site in favor of this fancy, new-fangled, dynamic one. New pages and designs are on their way. This blog will become a repository of news about what cool projects I’m working on and the occasionally brilliant (though, usually not) ideas I have about music, art, higher ed, and culture. Stay tuned. I promise not to use any blink tags…except for that one…and this one.

David MacDonald, composer

Happy Birthday, John Cage

Oh! So THAT’S what I’m doing wrong…

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