Letters

I am writing to bring to your attention a number of mistakes and misleading statements in Hubert Howe's review of Hannah B. Higgins and Douglas Kahn's Mainframe Experimentalism: Early Computing and the Foundations of Digital Arts in the Summer 2013 issue of Computer Music Journal [37:2, pp. 93-96]. As examples, Professor Howe's statements regarding John Cage's 4´33˝ that "the entire conception of the piece is what happens when a pianist sits on stage and does nothing" and regarding HPSCHD that "there was no reason it had to involve a computer" suggest to me a misunderstanding of not only these works, but also Cage's contributions to computer music.

The reviewer's inaccurate (Gann 2010, pp. 15-20) description of 4´33˝ is used to present the incorrect impression that with 4´33˝ Cage moved away from music. Cage's instructions that the performer indicate the three time intervals by opening and closing the piano lid clearly displays his intention to frame the observable sounds within the context of a musical composition (Gann 2010, p. 184). This observation of what Cage described as "all sounds"—the entirety of perceivable sounds at any given moment—and not the audience's outbursts, as the reviewer claims, is the core concept in the work.

Similarly problematic are his claims with regard to HPSCHD in which he says"there was no reason it had to involve a computer." This claim is demonstrably false. The mainframe computer at the University of Illinois was utilized as a structural compositional tool in HPSCHD, as well as a means of generating content for the work; the 51 tapes of microtonal sounds were computer-generated, and the vast majority of compositional decisions made in the work came from the software that Lejaren Hiller developed with Cage (Cage and Charles 1981, pp. 142-143). The sheer magnitude of the work, especially the application of Cage's chance operations in every aspect of it, required the use of a computer (Kostelanetz 1988, p. 75).

There are also a number of minor factual inaccuracies that create a distorted impression of HPSCHD, such as his claim that it was "presented in a barn-like building." Here the reviewer appears to be confusing the premiere of 4´33˝ with that of HPSCHD (Gann 2010, pp. 1-3). This mistake is minor, but it is used to bolster the reviewer's claim that "The result was something like a circus, even down to the fact that images were projected, and popcorn, candied apples, and T-shirts were sold." While Cage has certainly used the metaphor of the circus in his work, to present HPSCHD in this manner creates an impression more closely resembling a county fair than the complex and technically innovative event that it was. The reviewer also claims that none of the classical composers sampled in the work had written music for harpsichord. Mozart had in fact written several works for harpsichord, and it is on his work (although not his work for the harpsichord) that HPSCHD is based (Kostelanetz 1988, pp. 76-77).

Elsewhere in the review the writer does make strong assertions about the tenuous connection to the use of the mainframe computer in certain chapters of Mainframe Experimentalism. His claim that Alvin Lucier's use of a vocoder in North American Time Capsule is mostly indistinguishable from the use of an analog device is quite fair. However, his presentation of Cage is disappointing, as Cage's work has historically been similarly misrepresented; and while there are certainly objections that can be raised in regard to his work, it is important that it be accurately represented before these discussions can be had.