EMPTY WORDS FOR THE BIRDS
DIALECTICAL QUODLIBET
By Fredric Lieberman
I.
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Action Sonata
for any number of performers
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Three metronomes: 50, 60, 70
choose one as your clock
create a cycle from three digits
introduction: metronome solo, one minute or
longer
begin
clap cycle, repeating as many times as the third
digit
coda: metronome solo, one minute or longer
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variation one
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without metronomes
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variation two
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without clapping
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variation three
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without metronomes, without clapping
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II.
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Silence
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The inner tune persists,
resonance of sinew and desire,
melody that haunts hidden neurons,
circulates in the blood.
Memory, alive with moving tone,
will not be still.
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. . . If a composer wants to produce music that
is relevant to his contemporaries, his chief
problem is not really musical, though it may seem
to him to be so: it is a problem of attitude to
contemporary society and culture in relation to the
basic human problem of learning to be human. The
individual may attempt to induce the audience to
judge him and the situation in a particular way,
and he may seek this judgement as a ultimate end in
itself, and yet he may not completely believe that
he deserves the valuation of self which he asks for
or that the impression of reality which he fosters
is valid. . .
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. . . Coincidence is what they call pattern in
which they cannot discern something they are
prepared to accept as meaning; while chance is
perhaps the pseudonym of God when He wanted to
remain anonymous. . .
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III.
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. . . Silence can be complex too,
but you do not get far
with silence. . .
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There are, of course, many kinds of silence.
Silence can be the desired foreground, as in a
library (SILENCE, PLEASE!). It can be an active
goal, as in some disciplines of meditation. It can
be a byproduct of physical states (vacuum of space,
absolute zero). It can be anathema, as on radio or
television. It can be measured or unmeasured, free
or imbedded, active or passive, real or imagined,
relative or absolute.
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. . .This is a time and a world where it makes
almost no difference what we talk about&emdash;we
always talk about one and the same thing.
Categories crumble, the borderlines between the
different spheres of human thought become
unessential. Everything is connected with
everything else&emdash;and, in truth, it has always
been so: only, we were not conscious of it. . .
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. . . Science cannot produce ideas by which we
could live. Even the greatest ideas of science are
nothing more than working hypotheses, useful for
purposes of special research but completely
inapplicable to the conduct of our lives or the
interpretation of the world. Really how life gets
on is a secret, you only know your memory, and it
makes its own time. The real time leads you along
and you can never know when it happens, the best
that can be is come and gone. Moreover, I think
that our wisdom itself, and our wisest
consultations, for the most part commit themselves
to the conduct of chance. . .
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IV.
Mesostic Haiku
Trilogy
Meditation
Sonata
Three temple bells
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clear the mind
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strike:
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listen until sound disappears
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continue:
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listen
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stop if:
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unnecessary
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compulsive
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sounds persist indefinitely
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no distinction between sound and silence
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no distinction between self and bell
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Note: In addition to text originating with the
author, this quodlibet includes recontextualized
quotations from John Blacking, Robertson Davies,
E.L. Doctorow, Anatole France, Erving Goffman,
Thomas Mann, Montaigne, E.F. Schumacher, William
Carlos Williams.
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For
John Cage
March, 1987
Santa Cruz, California
UCSC | Arts
Division
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