"Music of Changes" - John Cage

Date: Composed in 1951. Premiered in New York, January 1, 1952.
Ensemble Type: Solo
Work Length: 43 minutes
Instrumentation: For solo piano.
Dedicatee: David Tudor
Publication: Peters Edition EP 6256, EP 6257, EP 6258, EP 6259 (4 volumes)
Source: http://johncage.org/pp/John-Cage-Work-Detail.cfm?work_ID=134

"Complete in 4 volumes. The title Music of Changes is variously meaningful, the first, of course, being reference to the Chinese oracle book the I Ching, or Book of Changes, of which Cage made extensive use in composing the piece. Another, more personal, reference is perhaps seen in the changes taking place in Cage's overall compositional language at the time. For this work, Cage employed I Ching-derived chance operations to create charts for the various parameters, i.e. tempi, dynamics, sounds and silences, durations, and superimpositions. With these charts, he was able to create a composition with a very conventional manner of notation, with staves and bars, where everything is notated in full detail. The piano is played not only by using the keys, but also by plucking the strings with fingernails, slamming the keyboard lid, playing cymbal beaters on the strings, striking the keyboard lid, etc. Use of the pedals is also notated in full detail. The notation is proportional, where 1 inch equals a quarter note. The rhythmic structure is 3, 5, 6 3/4, 6 3/4, 5, 3 1/8, and is expressed in changing tempi, including the use of accelerandi and ritards. This work may be seen as the first step of Cage's voyage into the world of chance composition. For Cage, this was a necessary first step in the giving up of individual taste and memory, as well as other previously meaningful traditions in the making of art. This development, in part, came as a result of his encounter and informal studies with Gita Sarabhai (Indian philosophy) and attendance at the lectures of Daisetz T. Suzuki (Zen Buddhism) in the late 1940s and into early 1950s. However, chance here only applies to the process of composition. The actual result, or composition, that derived by these means, along with the performance, are fixed and determined, things which Cage would also later abandon in subsequent compositions."

I Ching (Yi Jing) The Ancient Divination

~John Cage references the I Ching for a method of divination in his art.

 The I Ching - “Archaeological evidence shows that Zhou dynasty divination was grounded in cleromancy, the production of seemingly random numbers to determine divine intent. The Zhou yi provided a guide to cleromancy that used the stalks of the yarrow plant, but it is not known how the yarrow stalks became numbers, or how specific lines were chosen from the line readings. In the hexagrams, broken lines were used as shorthand for the numbers 6 (六) and 8 (八), and solid lines were shorthand for values of 7 (七) and 9 (九). The Great Commentary contains a late classic description of a process where various numerological operations are performed on a bundle of 50 stalks, leaving remainders of 6 to 9. Like the Zhou yi itself, yarrow stalk divination dates to the Western Zhou period, although its modern form is a reconstruction. The ancient narratives Zuo zhuan and Guoyu contain the oldest descriptions of divination using the Zhou yi. The two histories describe more than twenty successful divinations conducted by professional soothsayers for royal families between 671 BC and 487 BC. The method of divination is not explained, and none of the stories employ predetermined commentaries, patterns, or interpretations. Only the hexagrams and line statements are used. By the 4th century BC, the authority of the Zhou yi was also cited for rhetorical purposes, without relation to any stated divination. The Zuo zhuan does not contain records of private individuals, but Qin dynasty records found at Shuihudi show that the hexagrams were privately consulted to answer questions such as business, health, children, and determining lucky days. The most common form of divination with the I Ching in use today is a reconstruction of the method described in these histories, in the 300 BC Great Commentary, and later in the Huainanzi and the Lunheng. From the Great Commentary's description, the Neo-Confucian Zhu Xi reconstructed a method of yarrow stalk divination that is still used throughout the Far East. In the modern period, Gao Heng attempted his own reconstruction, which varies from Zhu Xi in places. Another divination method employing coins, became widely used in the Tang dynasty and is still used today. In the modern period, alternative methods such as specialized dice and cartomancy have also appeared.

 Sources:
 • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Ching
 • Smith, Richard J. (2008). Fathoming the Cosmos and Ordering the World: the Yijing (I Ching, or Classic of Changes) and its Evolution in China. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press. ISBN 0-8139-2705-6.
 • Raphals, Lisa (2013). Divination and Prediction in Early China and Ancient Greece. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press. ISBN 1-107-01075-6.
 • Rutt, Richard (1996). The Book of Changes (Zhouyi): A Bronze Age Document. Richmond: Curzon. ISBN 0-7007-0467-1.
 • Redmond, Geoffrey; Hon, Tze-Ki (2014). Teaching the I Ching. Oxford University Press.ISBN 0-19-976681-9.