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Week 5
A great series of albums that I believe are often over looked in Sonic Youth's discography are the four SYR releases that came out right around the millennium. These albums, all released in different languages were numbered SYR1 - SYR6 and were highly experimental. SYR4 entitled Goodbye 20th Century was a series of reinterpretations of select 20th century avant-garde composer's pieces including John Cage, Yoko Ono, and Cornelius Cardew. Like Cage, Cornelius Cardew experimented with graphic notation as means of communicating musical ideas. His testament to this study is the 193-page Treatise which was completed in 1967. Treatise marks a great shift in the relationship between the composer and the musician. Rather than reading a series of definite notes, the undefined diagrams and unfamiliar symbols that make up Treatise, the musician responds to the texts rather than reads them. These compositions are made to interpreted into any medium. More importantly Treatise shift the focus from music as an object to music as a process; a shift that is especially relevant with the advent of new technologies such as the computer which let us create, experience, and distribute music in completely new ways.
A great series of albums that I believe are often over looked in Sonic Youth's discography are the four SYR releases that came out right around the millennium. These albums, all released in different languages were numbered SYR1 - SYR6 and were highly experimental. SYR4 entitled Goodbye 20th Century was a series of reinterpretations of select 20th century avant-garde composer's pieces including John Cage, Yoko Ono, and Cornelius Cardew. Like Cage, Cornelius Cardew experimented with graphic notation as means of communicating musical ideas. His testament to this study is the 193-page Treatise which was completed in 1967. Treatise marks a great shift in the relationship between the composer and the musician. Rather than reading a series of definite notes, the undefined diagrams and unfamiliar symbols that make up Treatise, the musician responds to the texts rather than reads them. These compositions are made to interpreted into any medium. More importantly Treatise shift the focus from music as an object to music as a process; a shift that is especially relevant with the advent of new technologies such as the computer which let us create, experience, and distribute music in completely new ways.
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