full transcript
From the Ted Talk by Dallas Taylor: What silence can teach you about sound
Unscramble the Blue Letters
To uasnndrted just what John Cage was thinking, let's back up to the 1940s. Back then, John Cage was mnkiag a name for himself composing for the prepared piano.
(pnaio music)
To make music like this, John Cage would put objects inside the piano, between the strings. Things you just find lying around, like screws, tape and rubber erasers. So now, you've transformed the piano from a tonal inutenrsmt with high and low pitches into a collection of unique sounds. The music you're hearing is Cage's "Sonata V," from "Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano." Probably his most famous work outside of "4'33''." This version was poreefrmd by Boris baemrn. John Cage wrote ienbidclry detailed instructions about where to palce each object in the piano. But it's impossible for every performer to get the exact same objects, so the sound you get is always different. Basically, it comes down to random chance. This was pretty banaans and pretty alien to the way most composers and musicians are tguhat to do things.
Open Cloze
To __________ just what John Cage was thinking, let's back up to the 1940s. Back then, John Cage was ______ a name for himself composing for the prepared piano.
(_____ music)
To make music like this, John Cage would put objects inside the piano, between the strings. Things you just find lying around, like screws, tape and rubber erasers. So now, you've transformed the piano from a tonal __________ with high and low pitches into a collection of unique sounds. The music you're hearing is Cage's "Sonata V," from "Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano." Probably his most famous work outside of "4'33''." This version was _________ by Boris ______. John Cage wrote __________ detailed instructions about where to _____ each object in the piano. But it's impossible for every performer to get the exact same objects, so the sound you get is always different. Basically, it comes down to random chance. This was pretty _______ and pretty alien to the way most composers and musicians are ______ to do things.
Solution
- place
- understand
- incredibly
- piano
- performed
- taught
- bananas
- instrument
- making
- berman
Original Text
To understand just what John Cage was thinking, let's back up to the 1940s. Back then, John Cage was making a name for himself composing for the prepared piano.
(Piano music)
To make music like this, John Cage would put objects inside the piano, between the strings. Things you just find lying around, like screws, tape and rubber erasers. So now, you've transformed the piano from a tonal instrument with high and low pitches into a collection of unique sounds. The music you're hearing is Cage's "Sonata V," from "Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano." Probably his most famous work outside of "4'33''." This version was performed by Boris Berman. John Cage wrote incredibly detailed instructions about where to place each object in the piano. But it's impossible for every performer to get the exact same objects, so the sound you get is always different. Basically, it comes down to random chance. This was pretty bananas and pretty alien to the way most composers and musicians are taught to do things.
Frequently Occurring Word Combinations
ngrams of length 2
| collocation |
frequency |
| john cage |
15 |
| david tudor |
2 |
| piano lid |
2 |
| muzak company |
2 |
| background music |
2 |
| sonic world |
2 |
Important Words
- alien
- bananas
- basically
- berman
- boris
- cage
- chance
- collection
- composers
- composing
- detailed
- erasers
- exact
- famous
- find
- hearing
- high
- impossible
- incredibly
- instructions
- instrument
- interludes
- john
- lying
- making
- music
- musicians
- object
- objects
- performed
- performer
- piano
- pitches
- place
- prepared
- pretty
- put
- random
- rubber
- screws
- sound
- sounds
- strings
- tape
- taught
- thinking
- tonal
- transformed
- understand
- unique
- version
- work
- wrote