John Cage
Music Of Changes (Piano: Herbert Henck)

The Book of Changes (I Ching), the ancient Chinese book of oracles, is a source of inspiration for "Music of Changes" by John Cage, a lengthy piano piece written in 1951 and divided into four parts, lasting 44 minutes. It is a historical piece because it includes chance as an element that becomes part of the musical composition. Random operations, such as the toss of three coins, indeed determine some compositional decisions.

Cage prepares tables (8x8 squares, just like the 64 hexagrams of the I Ching) and writes numbers related to timings, dynamics, durations, and sound overlaps (the latter determine the density or fragmentation of sound); he then tosses the coins according to the rules of the I Ching (3 coins are tossed 6 times), decides which parameters to combine, and writes the score, noted with great precision. Thus, not random notes but chance mingling with pre-established compositional rules, intervening in part of the compositional process.

Why did Cage decide one day to introduce chance into music? For him, deeply interested in Eastern thought, it was a way of writing music liberated from the composer's ego, his individual taste, and the "expressive" component. It was a way to let the sounds represent themselves, rather than the reflected image of the composer. And this is the great lesson of Cage.

The title "Music of Changes" echoes the book of oracles, and should thus be understood as music of change, the dawn of a new day in the organization of sounds. Of course, the final result is perhaps less interesting than the theoretical premises that govern the piece, since the music eschews any discursive logic; it is nervous, agile, with short and darting sounds. The listener is left with few points of orientation (a few strings plucked by hand, some muted sounds), but mostly one wonders why dedicate time to a work that deliberately seems to favor an approach with the I Ching's coins rather than with the listener.

"Music of Changes" can be listened to a couple of times, then it fulfills its purpose. But it was very important that someone wrote this music, and it was Cage who did it. After "Music of Changes," many serious composers from old Europe would use aleatoric techniques (i.e., based on random processes) in their pieces. And after "Music of Changes," we, who are not composers, feel called to joyfully embrace the unexpected in our lives.