A Year from Monday: New Lectures and Writings

JUILLIARD LECTURE

In 1952 I was invited to speak at the Juilliard School of Music—not by the Director but by the students. They were having a series of meetings and students from other music schools were also attending. My lecture was in four parts, in all of which I applied processes of collage and fragmentation to texts which I had written earlier. There was in addition some new material. While I was lecturing, David Tudor performed a number of pieces at the piano, compositions by Morton Feldman, Christian Wolff, and myself. To coordinate our program, we used chronometers. I began the first part at 0' 00", the second at 12' 10", the third at 24' 20", the fourth at 36' 30". David Tudor's program was made without my knowing anything about it in advance. I had written myzyx text in four columns to facilitate a rhythmic reading and to measure the silences. I read each line across the page from left to right, not down the columns in sequence. I tried to avoid an artificial manner which might have resulted from my being too strictly faithful to the position of the words on the page. I used the rhythmic freedoms one uses in everyday speech. While the lecture was being given, Feldman was sitting on the stage. Both of us answered questions put to us afterward. When neither of us could think what to say in response to some angry "question," Henry Cowell, who was present in the audience with his wife Sydney, put in a word for us, for which we were very grateful. Afterward as we tried to get through the halls to reach the room where punch was being served, students, surrounding us, continued their arguments. Cowell was always right beside us. JUILLIARD LECTURE zyx 1 In the course of a lecture last winter on : "Before studying mountains are mountains things be-come confused actly what is what and which is After studying Zen, Dr. Suzuki said men are men and While studying Zen one doesn't know exwhich men are men and mountains are mountains Zen Buddhism, Zen, zyxwv 95 the question was mountains men are men are and asked what is mountains mountains the difference between before studying are mountains Suzuki answered After the lecture "Dr. Suzuki men are men and Zen and after studying Zen "Just the same had your feet music, , only somewhat as though you a little off the ground." Now, before studying men are men and sounds are sounds. music music At the beginning, that it isn't things aren't clear men are men and one can hear a a human being or it is high or low sounds are sounds. sound and tell something to look While studying After studying That is to say: immediately at has a lasts wheth velops a er certain he length en-joys it a set of or of things get a little confused longer just sounds, but are letters: G. Sharps and flats. octaves apart are called by a certain timbre and le and one can hear it. not , and likes and dislikes While studying A, B, C, D, Two of them, four the same letter loudness, One then gradually music Sounds E, or even decides deare no F, five zy 96 If a sound is if it seems to be on the grounds: modes or scales process begins composer feeling or In the case of a sounds themselves what 'count' lationships a canon is like A fugue is a be broken up or what musical who had it what the such a state of sound is not look at musical feeling portant most that can be to show how elf composer proved final extent that the but are Beethoven and Any child will A man is a To realize this separates unfortunate enough to too complex, it's a noise or The priveleged or nowadays called composition uses the sounds to an integration of musical idea are no longer are their reare generally children playing more complicated by a single sound from the horn of a The most that idea is to ; and the musical idea confusion something to hear , what counts is accomplished -motional the anyone wants to himself to be, he composer did and that men are not tell us man and a , one has to That is to say, one music from living not have a it...