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FROMEXPERIMENTAL
MUSIC
TO MUSICALEXPERIMENT

FRANKX. MAUCERI

of modern technology, music enters new and

complex relationships with the society to which it belongs. Both
scientific research and the economy of mass media become
specialized
emaranhadas
directly entangled with the practice of music composition. As a way of
analyzing these new relationships, I want to examine the use of the word
"experimental"with regard to music: how this term is used by composers
and critics; how it sets up and dissolves historical opposition and categories; how it defines music's use of technology and technology's use of
music.
My goal in excavating the oppositions implicit in the category "experimental music" is not to discredit criticism, musicology, or the unique
contributions of America's innovative composers. Like any historical
category, this one is informed by a social agenda. The oppositions it sets
Wx

ITH ITS ADOPTION

188

Perspectivesof New Music

serve a particularsocial perspective. When a term like "experimental"

upimplantado
is deployed as a category it not only creates implicit oppositions but it
also takes sides, it privileges and aligns particular differences. My goal is
to examine some of those differences while tracing the motivations and
effects of this word, "experimental."

EXPERIMENT

AS GENRE

contido

ordena

The concept of experimental music is less contentious today than it was

in the late 1950s, when electronic music was establishing itself as the vanguard of compositional practice. Often, "experimental music" generically
referred to the contemporary avant-garde or to electronic music. In
response, Heinz-Klaus Meztger included experimental music among thecompre
terms he called "abortive concepts," terms which "do not grasp their ende
subject" but enact a facile identification as a way to evade serious examination of the subject (Metzger 1959, 21).
Metzger's criticism would hold today. Though its meaning has
changed, "experimental music" is still often used to loosely designate a
genre of works whose common attributes are not denoted by that label.
It is instructive to contrast the deprecating use of this label by music
critics, as noticed by Metzger in 1959, with the favorable use of the term
in recent reference works.
The New Grove Dictionary of American Music [a.k.a. NGA] defines
experimental music as follows:
A tradition of 20th-century musical practice (largely but not excluo
sively American), the fundamental characteristic of which is a con- preconceito
tinuing search for radically new modes ofembora
composition, music na definio
making, and musical understanding. . . . Although experimental do Grove.
music is related to "conventional" contemporary music, the term is
used for a bolder, more individualistic, eccentric, and less highly
trabalhado
crafted kind of musical exploration. (Hitchcock and Sadie 1986, s.v.
"ExperimentalMusic" by John Rockwell)
The NGA entry traces this "tradition" through its exemplars:the work
of Charles Ives, Carl Ruggles, Edgard Varese, John Cage, David Tudor,
and Earl Brown; tuning innovations by Harry Partch and Lou Harrison;
the pattern music of Terry Riley, Philip Glass and Steve Reich; popular
and media-influenced music of Brian Eno and Laurie Anderson. Of the
composers mentioned in the dictionary entry, only Cage referred to the
music he composed as experimental and he explicitly rejected the kind of

From ExperimentalMusicto MusicalExperiment

189

definition offered above. It is doubtful that many of the composers listed

would themselves identify with the category as described.
Neither the critics nor the NGA entry attempt to designate a characteristic function or methodology; they are not trying to distinguish music
that conducts an experiment. Instead, they are trying to define something like a style of music making, a general category that functions in
opposition to another general category, "classical"music. The "radically
new" is opposed to the old. The word "experimental"is chosen in order
to characterize the nature of that opposition.
One way the word accomplishes this is by the suggestion that "experiobras inacabadas em algum sentido
mental" works are in a some sense unfinished, merely trial runs of
materiais e mtodos no testados
untested materials and methods. To the critics, according to Metzger,
"'experimental music' means music which is still in baby shoes and which
has still to become something genuine" (Metzger 1959, 27). It implies
that the composers have not dominado
mastered their methods as have composers
so mais cientistas loucos do que artistas realizados
of the tradition; they are more tinkerers or mad scientists than accomThe NGA article corroborates this impression but puts a
plished artists.
giro
on
it. The pieces are "less highly crafted" but that goes
positive spin
with
their
"bolder"
and "more individualistic" conception. What
along
remains unexamined in both cases are the conditions for what constitutes
the genuine, craft, or finish. In the opposition set up by the category
"experimental," these attributes are clearly positioned on the side of the
old against the new.
The conservative music criticism of the 1950s to which Metzger refers
used the term "experimental" to suggest an analogy between the new
exame
music and science. A survey of Die Reihe or Perspectivesof New Music is
sufficient to note that in some respects new music invites such an
pilar
analogy; language and theory borrowed from the sciences is a mainstay
queixado
of discourse among composers. But criticism has long complained of
vanguard music as dehumanized, and unnatural. "Experimental," along
with adjectives like "antiseptic" and "clinical," contribute to this tradition of criticism. Metzger places the use of "experimental" in the company of terms such as "laboratory music" and "engineers' music"
(Metzger 1959, 21). These modifiers suggest that this music substitutes
artificial procedures and means for the immediacy of natural expression
found in traditional concert music.
Note that an opposition between science and nature is mapped onto
an opposition between vanguard concert music and traditional concert
music. The "human" is positioned on the side of nature and tradition,
the side with which this type of criticism clearly identifies. The "human"
and the "natural"are constructed as normative and as representatives of
the tradition. The "artificial"is associated with the new forces of musical
production manifested by the vanguard.

190

Perspectivesof New Music

luta

The center of the science/nature opposition involves a struggle over

agito
relations
technology. Just as modern technology causes upheaval in social ameaa
and values (traditions) so the new music represents the same menace.
ameaam
New musical techniques threaten to displace not only the expressive
order but also the values and institutions of the tradition. The performer,
the orchestra, the concert hall, and even the music critic were (and are
still) threatened by the appearanceof new techniques.
Interestingly, recording and mass-media technologies are not
addressed by opposing science to nature. Surely, these present a greater
threat to the tradition than a marginal vanguard. The alienation that is
invoked when speaking of a dehumanized music has more to do with our
alienation in the face of commodity forms, a consequence of mass prodistanciamento
duction and mass media, than with our detachment from specialized
practices like scientific research. The category, "experimental music" constructs a weak antagonist against which music criticism can authenticate a
waning tradition.
In the 1960s, "experimental music" began to be used to set up quite
different oppositions than the ones discussed above. Today, "experimental music" is characterized as radicallynew but it is also posited as an historical category, a tradition in its own right.1 But as pointed out by art
critic Harold Rosenberg, "The new cannot become a tradition without
giving rise to unique contradictions, myths, absurdities" (Rosenberg
1959, 9). The irony of this historical category is the attempt to construct
a genre out of work that by its own definition is radically different and
highly individualistic.
The foremost contradiction of the NGA entry is found in the collection of composers; the list represents a wide variety of methods, influences, and sensibilities. The most interesting aspect of the list is the
omissions. The examples given notably exclude any major figure from the
provavelmente
of Stockhausen,
European avant-garde. Presumably, the contributions
ousadas
Schaeffer, Boulez, Xenakis, and Pousseur were not as bold, as individualistic, as eccentric, as their American colleagues. The NGA entry characterizes "experimental music" as a largely American tradition.2 In this
regard the NGA follows Michael Nyman's book Experimental Music.
Nyman defines this category primarilyin contrast to the European avantgarde:
I shall make an attempt to isolate and identify what experimental
music is, and what distinguishes it from music of such avant-garde
. . . which is conceived and
Xenakis,
composers as Boulez,
Kagel,muitas
percorrido
vezes
executed along the well-trodden but sanctified path of postRenaissance tradition. (Nyman 1974, 2)

From ExperimentalMusicto MusicalExperiment

191

Nyman attempts to exclude the European avant-garde by associating it

with the tradition of European concert music. "Experimental music" not
only places the new in opposition to the old, but also the new world in
opposition to the old world.
The motivations and effects of this opposition can be traced to cultural, technical, and institutional differences that are implicit in the distinction between European and American vanguards. First, the category
"experimental music" attempts to construct a tradition of original American art music that aspires to the kind of cultural authority that European
concert music enjoys. The category asserts a cultural difference against a
background of European culture's powerful influence and authority.
The avant-garde is an effective area in which to stake such a claim.
Avant-garde movements in the twentieth century have been characterized by both an expressed antagonism toward tradition and an emphasis
on originality. "Experimental music" claims that America is in a privileged position from which to originate a vanguard music by virtue of its
apparent distance from European culture's sphere of influence. Cage was
asked by a Dutch musician about the difficulty of writing music in America, "for you are so far from the centers of tradition." Cage replied: "It
must be very difficult for you in Europe to write music, for you are so
close to the centers of tradition" (Cage 1973, 73).
What is silently passed over is the fact that the avant-garde gesture of
rejecting tradition is a European one. Most explicit and strident was the
Italian Futurists' call to forget cultural history and to destroy cultural
institutions. Originality as a criteria of authenticity is borrowed from
European vanguard art. This is arguably not the case for Ives and
Ruggles, but Varese was influenced by the Futurists. John Cage acknowledges the influence of both Futurism (Russolo) and Dada (Satie,
Duchamp) on experimental music. And certainly the "experimental"
composers that followed Cage were aware of the importance of Europe's
artistic avant-garde.
In any case, the issue is not whether these composers' innovations were
motivated by a European ideal. The important point is that the category
"experimental music" is motivated by a European ideal. The category
draws on the "discourse of originality" that characterizes art theory and
criticism and has its roots in the European avant-garde (Krauss 1985,
157). The uniquely American "experimentalism" is legitimated as an
artistic category according to the terms of European culture; it tries to
"up the ante" on European avant-gardism by claiming a more radical
originality.
The second difference between experimental music and the European
avant-garde is one of technique. Almost all of the European vanguard
composers took serial (twelve-tone) technique as their starting point.

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Perspectivesof New Music

None of the American "experimental" composers adopted serialism as a

model.
Also important to the technical developments in Europe was the influence of scientific theory, particularly physics and information theory.
Reflecting these technical developments was a prolific theoretical discourse modeled on scientific writing. The journal Die Reihe exemplified
the adoption of terminology borrowed from the sciences as well as an
emphasis on formalist analysis. However, "experimental music" as an
American tradition refers not to scientific practice but more to the
mythology of American ingenuity and invention (e.g. Franklin, Bell,
Edison). In this context, regarding Cage, Schoenberg remarked: "He is
not a composer, but an inventor-of genius" (Yates 1967, 243-44).
"Experimental" composers did not write analyses of their work or each
others' work, with the exception of Cage whose prose may be considered
theoretical but hardly scientific. Journals like Cowell's New Music,3 or
Source (1967-72) were devoted to publishing scores or documenting
work rather than fostering analysis.
Finally, "experimental music" marks a difference between American
and European vanguards in their base of institutional support. Not only
does it operate outside of the traditional musical forms and techniques,
but also outside of the traditional forms of patronage:
Some writers ... drew a useful distinction between the avant-garde,
working within the tradition and within accepted channels of
communication (opera houses, orchestral concerts, universities,
broadcasting corporations, record companies), and experimental
composers, who preferred to work in other ways. (Griffiths 1986,
s.v. "Experimental Music")
It is debatable that this difference is entirely one of preference; America's cultural life is more exposed to market forces and does not receive
the state support typical of European orchestras, opera companies, and
radio stations. Those institutions in the U.S. did not support an avantreceita
garde for fear of losing their revenues along with their audience. Universities became a haven for composers in the U.S., but the composers considered "experimental" were exactly those not included in academic
music departments. Patronage is an important enough issue to merit a
subheading in the NGA entry. Experimental music received much of its
support from private donations and from the dance and visual arts community. It developed its own venues as well as taking advantage of museums and gallery spaces.

From ExperimentalMusicto MusicalExperiment

193

Central to "experimental music" as an historical category is its claim to

outsider status. The struggling (Bohemian) artist, a traditionally romantic European figure, is recast in the mold of American rugged individualism. Ives, the entrepreneur, pays for the performance of his work from his
business earnings. Cage peddles his wares, first in the L.A. suburbs, and
then to rich patrons like Peggy Guggenheim.
The American universities reproduced the European alignment of cultural tradition, serial/scientific paradigms, and institutional support.
First, the academy was strongly grounded in European tradition. This
was especially true after the influx of European composers (Schoenberg,
Krenek, Milhaud, Hindemith) and musicologists (Willi Apel, Curt Sachs,
Leo Schrade, Paul Henry Lang) during World War II. Second, composition in the universities was aligned with both serial technique (Sessions,
Babbitt, Wuorinen) and with a theoretical discourse modeled on the
sciences. Perspectivesof New Music, largely representing the academic
vanguard, continued the formalist analytic initiated by Die Reihe and, at
one time, even criticized that journal for not being rigorous in its use of
scientific terminology and theory (Kerman 1985, 102). Finally, new
music in the United States gained most of its institutional support and
cultural legitimacy within the universities.
In many respects, the category "experimental music" marks a more
immediate struggle against the authority of the academy than it does
against the authority of European music. Curiously, the period when this
category began to be deployed coincides with the introduction of
"experimental" composers into the universities.4 The new category was
used as a way to legitimate these composers and, thus, to bring them into
the academic fold. After all, the academy itself promulgated the category;
musicology sanctioned "experimental music" as an American tradition.
The American avant-garde outside of the academy presented a greater
challenge to the musical status quo than it would inside. It developed
new audiences, new venues, new techniques, and new sensibilities. After
nominal acceptance into the universities and the established forums, critics could begin to speak of the domestication or even the death of the
avant-garde in spite of continued activity both inside and outside of the
academy.
EXPERIMENT AS TECHNIQUE

For scientific practice, "experiment" does not refer to a historical or

stylistic category. Experiment is a technique by which evidence is
gathered in support of a theory. It is a method that tests hypotheses. The

194

Perspectivesof New Music

hypothesis is a prediction based on theory; the theory, a set of formal

generalizations regarding a specified range of phenomena. By testing the
prediction, the experiment aims to confirm the theory.
Benjamin Boretz distinguishes the composer from the scientist, claiming that science strives to make each observed event part of a data set that
supports a general conception whereas composition works to distinguish
events and to multiply their distinctions in contradiction to any general
conception. "[T]o learn to hear a unique thing as a categorical thing is a
net loss for musical experience" (Boretz 1977, 11). The composer desires
that the musical phenomenon be so experientially rich as to differentiate
itself and resist generalizations.
Scientific theory is manifested in the operating principles of its scientific apparatus, in the methods used, and in the expectations scientists
exercise in the interpretation of data. Musical theory likewise manifests
itself in equipment, methods, and in expectations. Scientific experiment
seeks to confirm its underlying theory but compositional experiment
seeks to differentiate events, to go beyond the generalizations inherent in
theory. The composed experiment is designed to transcend its verification of the methods used, to exceed its gestural, semiotic, or formal functioning. It preserves itself as phenomenal, an experience pregnant with
interpretive and affective possibility. The question remains as to whether
musical methods can be "experimental," especially given that its purposes
are at odds with those of scientific methods.

EXPERIMENT AS TECHNOLOGY

Hiller and Isaacson adopt the scientific meaning of the experiment in

reference to the computer-music research described in their book, Experimental Music (1959). Hiller lists a chronology of experiments related to
composing the Illiac Suitefor String Quartet:.
1. To build up an elementary technique of polyphonic writing, a
simplified version of first-species counterpoint was used.
2.

To realize cantus firmus settings, academicallycorrect, in strict first

species counterpoint.

3.

"[T]o produce novel musical structures in a more contemporary

style and to code musical elements such as rhythm and dynamics."

4.

"[T]o produce radically different species of music based upon

fundamental new techniques of musical analysis." (Hiller and
Isaacson 1959, 4)

From ExperimentalMusicto MusicalExperiment

195

The first two experiments make a prediction regarding the applicabilityof

computer technique to problems of established musical technique. Hiller
and Isaacson performed tests in which computer programs were called
upon to solve problems in modal counterpoint. The desired outcome of
these tests would not be novelty or originality but the predicted adherence to well-defined rules.
The third and fourth experiments seem to contradict the goals of scientific experiment. The third experiment proposes to "produce novel
musical structures." This does not appear to be a simple case of theory
testing and confirmation. What is meant by "in a contemporary style"? If
the output is "in a style," does that indicate that it must conform to some
recognizable stylistic norms? If the output was in an "old style," that
would clearly fail the test by not being contemporary, but it is unclear
what other criteriawould constitute failure or success. The fourth experiment also raises questions as to whether this is an experiment in the scientific sense. It is conceivable that the experiment is set up to disprovean
existing theory, but it is never stated what the results of this experiment
are to be measured against. Clearly,some species of novelty is sought and
a simple test of success or failure is unlikely.
Regardless of issues of testing or novelty, Hiller and Isaacson treat the
output of the four "experiments" as data representative of the techniques
used, even after it has been incorporated into a piece of music:
Computer output produced as a result of carrying out these four
experiments was utilized to produce a four-movement piece of
music we have entitled the Illiac Suite for String Quartet....
The
musical materials in these four movements were taken from a much
imparciais
larger body of material by unbiased sampling procedures, so that a
representative rather than a selectively chosen musically superior
group of results would be included in the Illiac Suite. Thus, it is
important to realize when examining this score that our primary aim
was not the presentation of an aesthetic unity-a work of art. This
music was meant to be a research record-a laboratory notebook.
(Hiller and Isaacson 1959, 5)
This piece of music is considered primarilya representative sample of an
experimental data set. The description above makes claims to the objectivity of the material selected; "unbiased sampling procedures" were used
to make the selection in order to prevent a "subjective" representation of
the materials and thus a falsification of the data. The composer claims to
be doing scientific research.
The composer suggests that the Illiac Suite is not really a work of art at
all. But as a laboratory notebook the piece has limited research utility.

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Perspectivesof New Music

Without the complete data set or a statistical analysis we really have no

idea how representative the Illiac Suite is of the techniques used or how
exactly and consistently those techniques produced the expected results.
At best it is a demonstration of examples that would accompany a scientific paper containing the data analysis. Without the analysis there is no
sound scientific reason for examining only a small subset of the data
taken. If the Illiac Suite is science, then it is not good science.
It would seem that the Illiac Suite is neither musical art nor science.
What, then, does it accomplish? First, it serves as a demonstration of certain new musical techniques, but more importantly, it serves as an advoapelaes
cate for those techniques. The claims to scientific association are appeals
to the authority of science to legitimate this advocacy.
The promotion of technique is clearly stated in Hiller's description of
his piece Computer Cantata and the computer program, MUSICOMP,
used to produce it:
Since our primary purpose was to demonstrate the flexibility and
generality of MUSICOMP, the Computer Cantata presents a rather
wide variety of compositional procedures. . . . [T]he interested
composer should find these studies of significance as a concrete
demonstration of the broadening of the research area of experimental composition techniques made feasible by computers and by a
program such as MUSICOMP. (Hiller and Baker 1964, 62)
In this instance, the composer's stated purpose is the promotion of a
The piece "presents a wide variety of procedures" in order to
technique.
registrar
inventory the flexibility of a computer program; compositional decisions
are made with the objective of demonstrating the power of a technique.
Hiller tells us that composers should find this piece significant. Why?
because it displayswhat is feasible, what can be done by others. The piece
propaganda
functions as an advertisement for the procedures that produced it.
Likewise, technique becomes a way of promoting pieces. If the primary
purpose of the composition is to demonstrate a technique, as a consequence, the primary purpose of listening becomes to hear examples of
techniques. Evidence of this is commonly found in program notes that
not only describe the procedures employed but also inventory the equipment used. The audience is persuaded that the technique is, in itself, reason to listen.
Experimental composition in this sense is not simply a technique, as it
is in scientific practice, but a technology. By this I mean that it is not
propositada
merely a tool for some purposeful action but an economy of techniques
that propagates a set of tools, practices, and relations. Consider the
market dynamics of high-tech industry. New techniques are developed as

From ExperimentalMusicto MusicalExperiment

197

commodities which are desirable in so far as they exhibit the latest technical achievement. Technology not only develops and generates techniques, but it also generates demand for more techniques. Technology
functions as an advertisement for the technology that produced it.
By invoking science in order to legitimate musical innovations, those
innovations are transposed into the social economy of technology. They
are valued more as technical achievements than as contributions to
music. What may potentially be radical music is instead merely another
step in the development of the latest synthesizer or software.5 Vanguard
music is displaced from its role as part of a public cultural life and
becomes a technical specialty.
Whether or not Hiller's experiments were motivated by commercial
potential is not important. What is significant are the social relations that
music enters into when it is talked about as technological research. The
language of technology demands that we value musical works according
to the economy of technology. Without discussing the advantages or disis relocated in the field of social relaadvantages, one can see that music marcador
tions. The word "experimental"is a markerfor that relocation.

EXPERIMENT AS FUNCTION

Cage = experimentao ocorrem quando

os resultados so inesperados:
experimentalismo como funo

states that "an experimental action is one the outcome of

John Cage
imprevisto
which is unforeseen" (Cage 1973, 39). Here, "experiment" is neither
category nor technique; it indicates a function, one with an unpredictable
output. Metzger (and Cage also) points out that musical experiments
usually precede the final composition. Materials and methods are tried
out and tested before they are incorporated into a composition in order
to insure that the finished work will not be "experimental."6Cage's work
was an exception to this. He was interested in finished works that performed an unpredictable action.
Cage's primary model of "experimental music" is the composition
indeterminate with respect to its performance: open form works like
Christian Wolffs Duo for Pianists II (1958); graphic scores like Earle
Brown's December1952; score-construction kits like Cage's VariationsII
(1961). Each of these pieces has the potential to be realized in substantially different ways and so each performance is an experiment in the
sense that the outcome is not predictable.
For Cage, this unpredictable function, experiment, became central to
his musical thinking. It dissolved the opposition between intended and
unintended sounds implicit in traditional music. An unforeseen sound
event cannot be one that was intended by the composer, yet the composer can intentionally provide the opportunity for such events. Music

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Perspectivesof New Music

was no longer discursive, or expressive, but a constellation of sounds:

"New music: new listening. Not an attempt to understand something
that is being said, for, if something were being said, the sounds would be
given the shapes of words. Just an attention to the activity of sounds"
(Cage 1973, 10). Cage saw experiment as a strategy for leaving out the
composer's intention, for removing expression from music.
Cage connected the emergence of "experimental music" to the possibilities opened up by electronic recording and sound-synthesis techniques. Traditional conceptions of musical sound treat parameterssuch as
pitch, rhythm, amplitude, et cetera, as divided into discrete units. Counterpoint, harmony, and orchestration are all concerned with structuring
significant distinctions within this grid of discrete units, whereas electronic techniques treat these parametersas continuous.
trampolim

They resemble walking-in the case of pitches, on steppingstones

passos cautelosos
twelve in number. This cautious
stepping is not characteristicof the
possibilities of magnetic tape, which is revealing to us that musical
action or existence can occur at any point or along any line or curve
or what have you in total sound-space; that we are, in fact, technically equipped to transform our contemporary awareness of nature's
manner of operation into art. (Cage 1973, 9)
Cage suggests that technical means draw us closer to sound's real nature.
Natural sound is not divided into scales, beats, instruments, and so on. It
does not conform to the necessities of expressive means. Musical experiment, by divesting itself of the requirements of expression, is free to
include the sound environment and the unrestricted (and unpredictable)
behaviors of natural sound.
Second, technical means explode the sound possibilities for music;
music can now take place in a total sound-space. All sounds are available.
The magnetic tape makes no distinctions between intended and unintended sound, between musical sound and noise. Any succession or combination of sounds is possible: "Any sound at any point in this total
sound-space can move to become a sound at any other point" (Cage
1973, 9).
As a consequence, all basis for the meaningful significance of any musical event is removed. There can be no context of meaningful possibilities
when all events are equally possible, equally unpredictable. Musical
means are divorced from all conventions of expression. In the context of
infinite technical possibilities, all sound events are undifferentiated and
thus meaningless.
Third, Cage uses the technical possibilities to collapse the opposition
of production and reception, of composer and auditor. He doesn't say

From ExperimentalMusicto MusicalExperiment

199

that technical means transform the composer's awareness of what can be

made, or of what can be done. Technical means "transform our . . .
awareness into . . . art." We are all listeners and thus we are all artists.
Technique is not a means to control sound but rather to give up control.
A way of opening up listening and filtering out the exercise of intention,
"Those involved with the composition of experimental music find ways
and means to remove themselves from the activities of the sounds they
make" (Cage 1973, 10).
A decisive moment in the development of Cage's thinking involves an
encounter with technology. Cage often told the story of how in 1951 he
entered an anechoic chamber-an acoustically isolated room designed to
minimize sound reflection-and how he heard the sounds of his nervous
system and circulatory system (Cage 1973, 13). He entered in search of
silence only to discover that we are always in the presence of sound. He
realized that silence consists of all those sounds that we do not intend to
hear, the sounds that we ignore. The concept of silence is an abstraction,
not a matter of the absence of sound but rather of the absence of attention. Sounds that occur apart from purposeful action (including purposeful hearing) are not there, they are silent, but only with reference to
purposefulintention.
The concert hall, like the anechoic chamber, is a space engineered in
order to isolate sounds for intentionality. All sound activity peripheral to
the music on stage is absorbed, either physically (by the hall acoustics) or
socially (by directing and conditioning audience response). In the concert hall one is surrounded by silence so that one can focus on the music.
In the anechoic chamber one is surrounded by silence so that one can
focus on an acoustics experiment or test. Both are technologies of listening. In both, silence is the margin of perceptual focus (Ihde 1976, 11113).
Cage's experience revealed that the silence in both situations was a
function of intention and that intention functions to filter out perceptions
not relevant to intention's purposes.The anechoic chamber provided the
opportunity for an experiment, an unpredictable situation. The chamber
is designed to serve as a prosthetic to intention, to filter out unwanted
perception, to focus attention on a specified object. But Cage enters the
chamber anticipating the unexpected, without an object or an objective-an experiment. Cage's discovery results when he uses the experimental apparatus to filter out purposeful intention so that perception is
unrestricted. The chamber serves Cage not so much as an acoustically
controlled situation but as an acoustically unpredictable situation. Experiment functions to filter out intention so that perception is not restrictedto
intention's object.

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The fact that this use runs counter to the intentions for which the
anechoic chamber was designed highlights the dialectic that is at the
heart of Cage's experiment. The chamber is like a listening machine, an
lente de aumento
acoustic magnifying glass. But the chamber presents itself as a silence
os meios machine; Cage enters wondering what silence will sound like. With this
materiais misunderstanding Cage turns the machine back on itself; he listens to
aparecen himself listening through a technology of listening. Cage listens to the
do
machine, not merely with the machine, he looks at the magnifying glass
claramen rather than through it. He notices that the listening machine makes
te na sounds (for Cage is a cyborg, the chamber is an extension of his ear (or is
arte: his ear an extension of the chamber?)); the ear hears itself.
experime Cage repeats the experiment in the concert hall. The concert hall
ntalismo purports to be a silent room, but Cage understands that it is really a
listening machine, and he performs the same inversion that he experienced in the anechoic chamber. In 4'33" the concert hall listens to itself,
to its ventilation, to its breathing and coughing, to its restlessness and its
reverberation (for the audience member is a cyborg, the hall an extension
of the ear (or is the ear an extension of the hall?)); the ear hears itself.

EXPERIMENT AS HEURISTIC-CONCLUSION

Experiment as heuristic is the performance of this inversion, the mechanism turning back on itself, a moment that sounds forth the contradictions within the otherwise silent functioning of a technique. Techniques
are designed to effect an intended and anticipated end, to function
smoothly, to operate invisibly, silently. Only when technique malfunctions do we attend to it (the squeaky wheel . . .). In the experimental
moment we not only attend to sound, but also to the theories, oppositions, and categories implicit in the mechanism of a practice.
Cage defines experiment in terms of function. But Cage's definition
precludes functionality in the sense of technical means. Experiment is
dysfunctional insofar as its unpredictability makes it unfit for purposeful
use; it cannot be a goal-oriented action. And yet the apparatus, the
instruments, the techniques that comprise the experiment carry with
them a history of purposeful use, otherwise they would not be
techniques. The difference between function and malfunction is one of
intention and consequently also one of perception. This difference is the
locus of experiment's dialectic, "the purposeful purposelessness or a purposeless play" (Cage 1973, 12).
Scientific experiments are techniques executed with an intended purpose, to confirm the predictions made by theory. Scientific practice is not

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looking for novelty but rather evidence in support of its current paradigm
(Kuhn 1962, 52). Cage's experiment seems to be headed in the opposite
direction, in search of the unpredictable, but there is an interesting point
of intersection.
When scientific experiment yields unexpected results, and it repeatedly
does, theory is called into question. The unexpected must be explained
by new theory; thus, new theories are invented or discovered: "Discovery
commences with the awareness of anomaly" (Kuhn 1962, 52). Cage's
definition of experimental action, "one the outcome of which is not foreseen" (Cage 1973, 39), corresponds to experimental anomaly in science.
The unforeseen musical event exceeds our ability to "make sense" of it; it
ruptures our interpretive framework. For both science and music, the
moment of discovery is structured in the same way; the experimental
event cannot be accommodated by the framework of meaning-giving
relationships that preceded its appearance.
Within the economy of technology, experiment marks the site where
knowledge, practices, and techniques are extended and advanced.
Research and development are at the center of technological expansion.
Consequently, this is also where there are sufficient flexibilities in the
technological network to allow new relations to come into being. The
social order must restructure itself in response to changes in the forces of
production. The music criticism that Metzger refers to speaks on behalf
of a social order destabilized by new techniques. So does the musicology
that would turn various heuristic anomalies, compositional experiments,
into examples of a genre. But new relations are thus reintegrated into the
overall network; their critical difference is appropriated by the dominant
order. The link between experimental composition and technology
defines a domain wherein critical relations are enabled and also where
they are effaced; where new compositional practices are empowered but
also where their effects are neutralized and dispersed.
The heuristic moment is one of breakdown-the inadequacy of theory,
the malfunction of technique, the rupture of interpretive frameworks,the
dissolution of categories. The question is no longer "what is experimental music," but rather "when is music an experiment"; when is music
heuristic?To use "experiment" in this way is to include in the discussion
at least some of the conditions that structure the context in which experiment takes place. Hopefully, language about music can then be as heuristic as the musical innovations it attempts to describe.

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NOTES

1. Michael Nyman's book, Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond

(1974), is perhaps the first extended attempt to argue for "experimental music" as an historical category. His definition differs from
the NGA entry and is more nuanced, but the nature of the attempt is
the same.
2. "Experimental music" does not appear as an entry in the New Grove
Dictionary of Music, only in the New GroveDictionary of American
Music. The NGA characterization of "experimental music" as American is corroborated in other reference works: "experimental work
has been much more a feature of American and English music than
of mainland European" (Griffiths 1986, s.v. "Experimental Music");
"used to distinguish anti-traditional composers, such as Cage, from
the established avant-garde of Boulez and Stockhausen" (Arnold
1983, s.v. "Experimental Music"); "Among American pioneers of
experimental practice are Ives, Ruggles, Varese, and Cage" (Morehead with MacNeil 1991, s.v. "ExperimentalMusic").
3. Cowell and Strang 1927-1955, sporadic publication after 1955.
4. Except for Cage's short residency at Wesleyan (1960-61), most
"experimental" composers began their first academic appointments
in the late sixties: Cage's next appointment was University of Cincinnati (1967); Gordon Mumma, Brandeis (1966-67); Earle Brown,
Peabody Conservatory (1968); Robert Ashley, Mills (1969); Lou
Harrison, San Jose University (1967); Morton Feldman, SUNYBuffalo (1972); Christian Wolff, Dartmouth (1970) (Wolff taught
classics at Harvard before 1970). The exception is Alvin Lucier,
Brandeis (1963).
5. Composers have had professional relationships with Bell Labs,
Phillips, RCA, Sylvania, and Yamaha.After the commercial success of
FM synthesis, composers developing new synthesis techniques
remain cognizant of the needs of a multi-million dollar industry.
Sound synthesis research, like the present interest in acoustic modeling, functions as research and development for the music synthesizer/software industry and takes place under the auspices of
university ("experimental") music studios.
6. Stockhausen (1960) clearly separates experiments from the final
composition: "Experiments were made in the Studio for Electronic

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Music at the West German Radio Station in Cologne from February

1958 until Autumn 1959. The score and its realization, commissioned by the West German Radio, took from September 1959 until
May 1960 to be completed."

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