Entertainment Called Discussion: The Critical Pedagogy of John Cage

Action, Criticism & Theory for Music Education I S S N 15 4 5 - 4 5 17 A refereed journal of the Action for Change in Music Education Vo lu m e 14 N u m be r 2 Au gu s t 2 0 15 Vincent C. Bates, Editor Brent C. Talbot, Associate Editor Th at En te rtain m e n t Calle d a D is cu s s io n : Th e Critical Arts Pe d ago gy o f Jo h n Cage Otto Muller © Otto Muller. 20 15. The content of this article is the sole responsibility of the authors. The ACT J ournal and the Mayday Group are not liable for any legal actions that m ay arise involving the article's content, including, but not lim ited to, copyright infringem ent. Special Features: Download this docum ent and then open it in Adobe Reader to view endnotes and citations by placing the cursor over the corresponding num ber or date. Action, Criticism , and Theory for Music Education 14(1) 122 That Entertainment Called a Discussion: The Critical Arts Pedagogy of John Cage Otto Muller Goddard College, Vermont Abs tra ct Just as John Cage used chance techniques to relinquish control in his practice as a com poser, he used pedagogical techniques that facilitated shared learning and experim entation. The tenets of Critical Pedagogy , as laid out by Paulo Freire in The Pedagogy of the Oppressed, offer insights into the structures and strategies im plicit in John Cage’s w ork as an educator. A survey of accounts by form er students of Cage, as w ell as Cage’s w ritings on education show that Cage’s approach to both classroom and individualized teaching w as characterized by the principles of co-intentional dialogue, praxis, holistic engagem ent, and an aw areness of education as a m oral and political act. Critical pedagogy , w hich clearly articulates and generalizes these principles, therefore offers an analy sis that m akes it possible to separate John Cage’s innovations in m usic pedagogy from his personality and aesthetics, rendering them available for further developm ent and application. Keywords: John Cage, Paulo Freire, Critical Pedagogy , Experim ental Music rriving at the Em m a Lake Music Workshop in August of 1965, J ohn Cage wrote: A The role of a com poser is other than it was. Teaching, too, is no longer transm ission of a body of useful inform ation, but's conversation, alone, together, whether in a place appointed or not in that place . . . We talk, m oving from one idea to another, like hunters. (Cage 1967, 21) As he goes on to record the week’s activities, Cage outlines an approach to teaching that is m arked by dialogue, interdisciplinarity, and shared experience, that rejects the notion of an authoritative lecturer providing knowledge to the uninform ed. A year later, when Muller, Otto. 20 15. That entertainm ent called a discussion: The critical arts pedagogy of J ohn Cage. Action, Theory , and Criticism for Music Education 14(2): 122– 44. act.m aydaygroup.org/ articles/ Muller14_ 2.pdf Action, Criticism , and Theory for Music Education 14(1) 123 he was asked “How would you educate people to live in this new world we’re talking about?” he m akes this rejection explicit, echoing Buckm inster Fuller and Marshall McLuhan’s claim that “the least im portant aspect in education is the teacher” (Kostelanetz 1970 , 22– 3). There is a clear parallel between Cage’s im pulse to relinquish control within his com positions and his willingness to open his classroom into an arena of experim entation and discussion. Cage’s rejection of professorial authority and knowledge transfer as the basis of education, however, also belongs to a larger trend and discourse within pedagogical theory an d practice. Throughout the 20 th century, m any theorists have advocated for a shift away from the traditional im age of a teacher as one who “transm its a body of useful inform ation,” who instructs, and disciplines, and toward a conception of the teacher as one who facilitates a student’s engagem ent with learning. In 1890 , J ohn Dewey drew the attention of the press in Michigan by designing a philosophy course around class discussion instead of lecture, developing the position that a teacher’s role is one of guidance and m ediation (Nebeker 20 0 2). Maria Montessori conceived of the “directress” as a valet, hum bly serving the spirit of the child, as a custodian of a learn ing environm ent and a facilitator of activities within it, and as an observant scientist and researcher, carefully m onitoring the developm ent of each learner (O’Donnell 20 13). During the political upheavals of the 60 s and 70 s, theorists like Hartm ut von Hentig em phasized the teacher’s responsibility to practice what they preach, “to put up resistance to the forces that im pinge upon their lives and to try to change society where it's wrong—to exam in e how his own life stands in relation to his teaching,” in order to “[help] people learn to m ake decisions in the face of other people's power—or their own non-power—on the basis of incom plete inform ation and under pressure of tim e” (Carr 1972). More recently, J ohn Hattie has culled hundreds of m eta-an alyses on the outcom es of different educational strategies to argue for a synthesis of “teacher-centered teaching and student-centered learning” wherein “teachers becom e learners of their own teaching, and when students becom e their own teachers” (Hattie 20 0 8, 22). He differentiates this from m ere facilitation of student-centered learning, however, arguing Muller, Otto. 20 15. That entertainm ent called a discussion: The critical arts pedagogy of J ohn Cage. Action, Theory , and Criticism for Music Education 14(2): 122– 44. act.m aydaygroup.org/ articles/ Muller14_ 2.pdf Action, Criticism , and Theory for Music Education 14(1) 124 that good teachers em ploy deliberate and visible strategies, that “they intervene in calculated and m eaningful ways to alter the direction of learning to attain various shared, specific, and challenging goals” (22). Cage’s work as an educator can be read in relationship to the pedagogical theories that em erged throughout the 1960 s, when consideration of the role of institutionalized education in repressive power structures led to radical developm ents and reinterpretations of the principles of J ohn Dewey’s progressive education. Efforts to m ake education a location of liberatory social change culm inated in various realizations, ranging from the Sudbury School’s experim ents in dem ocratic education (1968) and Evalyn Bates’ low-residency adult degree program (1963), to Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1969) and Ivan Illich’s Deschooling Society (1971) to the student strikes of 1970 . Som e of Cage’s educational experience precedes this historical m om ent, 1 nevertheless these theoretical perspectives can be effectively em ployed to analyze the choices that Cage m ade as a teacher throughout his career, and to identify patterns within his approach that could be further developed today. While Ivan Illich’s work, which Cage refers to in a later interview with Richard Kostelanetz (20 0 2), offers a fram ework for understanding Cage broadly as an “educatorat-large” within an “educational web” (Illich 1973, 33) that extends beyond any of the institutions that em ployed him , critical pedagogy, the educational approach that Freire outlines in Pedagogy of the Oppressed, provides specific insights into Cage’s m ode of engagem ent with students. Freire’s m odel, which actively rejects the teacher-student hierarchy and grounds itself in real-world experience, effects real social and political change and offers a unique interpretive lens for understanding Cage’s teaching as a reproducible m ethodology serving liberatory ends. As pioneers and personalities, Freire and Cage have a num ber of sim ilarities. Both are influential, “inaugural” (Nym an 1999; McLaren 20 0 0 ) figures in their respective spheres of critical pedagogy and experim ental m usic. Music critic, J ohn Rockwell has written that Cage’s “influence is cited without question even by his opponents” (Rockwell 1983, 47). Sim ilarly J oe Kin cheloe has written that “Freire becam e the m ost well-known educator in the world by the 1970 s . . . indeed, all work in Muller, Otto. 20 15. That entertainm ent called a discussion: The critical arts pedagogy of J ohn Cage. Action, Theory , and Criticism for Music Education 14(2): 122– 44. act.m aydaygroup.org/ articles/ Muller14_ 2.pdf Action, Criticism , and Theory for Music Education 14(1) 125 critical pedagogy after him has to reference his work” (Kincheloe 20 0 4, 70 ). Their writing blends spirituality and social theory—Catholicism and Lukács in the case of Freire, Zen and McLuhan in the case of Cage—and offers a vision of hope in change (Kincheloe 20 0 4). At the sam e tim e, their efficacy as educators is visible in Freire’s successful rural literacy program in Brazil, an d in the roster of groundbreaking artists who cite Cage’s teaching as a prim ary catalyst. Rockwell, in fact, goes on to argue that Cage’s “influence . . . is prim arily through his writings and personality” (Dickinson 20 0 6, 163) as well as his “en couragem ent of younger com posers” (Rockwell 1983, 50 ), rather than his own m usical output as a com poser. Moreover, the renegade fields of experim ental m usic and critical pedagogy have overlapping origins that relate back to the Frankfurt School and Arnold Schoenberg. Schoenberg, with whom Cage studied from 1933 to 1935 had also taught com position to philosopher Theodor Adorno, who went on to extol his revolutionary “change in the function of m usical expression” (Adorno 20 0 7, 27). Susan Buck-Morss (1979) even goes so far as to say that “Schoenberg's revolution in m usic provided the inspiration for Adorno's own efforts in philosophy,” (5) relating Schoenberg’s rejection of the background principle of tonal function to Adorno’s critique of Hegelian idealism . While Cage an d Adorno took different insights from Schoenberg’s teaching, sim ilarities can be seen, for exam ple, in their interest in the system atic exploration of m aterials and their critiques of popular m usic (Dworkin 20 0 9). 2 The basic prem ise of critical pedagogy, n am ely the understanding of academ ic disciplines as “m anifestations of the discourses and power relations of the social and historical contexts that produced them ” (Kincheloe 20 0 4, 48), is rooted in the critical theory of the Frankfurt School which included Adorno, Max Horkheim er, and Herbert Marcuse am ong others. In particular, Freire was influenced by Marcuse, whose critiques of reification or the “dehum anization of thought and conduct that is necessarily encountered wherever theory or practice appear in society to be structured objectively or organized around ‘things,’ an d consequently as im properly separated from subjective hum an activity” (Reitz 20 0 4, 57), resonate in Freire’s claim that, “in order to achieve hum anization, which presupposes the elim ination of dehum anizing oppression, Muller, Otto. 20 15. That entertainm ent called a discussion: The critical arts pedagogy of J ohn Cage. Action, Theory , and Criticism for Music Education 14(2): 122– 44. act.m aydaygroup.org/ articles/ Muller14_ 2.pdf Action, Criticism , and Theory for Music Education 14(1) 126 it is absolutely necessary to surm ount the lim it-situations in which people are reduced to things” (quoted in Reitz 20 0 4, 57). In his essay, Liberating the Critical in Critical Theory: Marcuse, Marx, and a Pedagogy of the Oppressed: Alienation, Art, and the Hum anities, Charles Reitz (20 0 4) tracks the relationship between Marcuse and Freire arguing that for both, “disalienation through conscientization (Freire) or the aesthetic dim ension (Marcuse) is held to be situated logically an d chronologically prior to social and political em ancipation” (57). This parallels Adorno’s understanding of the avantgarde, typified by Schoenberg’s atonality, as an active resistance to a culture industry and the com m odification of experience. Much m ore could be written, of course, about the extent to which the them es and theories of Adorno and Marcuse are carried forward in the work of Cage and Freire. This brief overview sim ply provides a genealogical basis for the connection that this paper draws between Freire and Cage, and for the suggestion that the student whom Schoenberg described as “not a com poser but an inventor of genius” (Cage 1962, About the Author), m ight contribute to the field of critical pedagogy. In order to understand Cage’s teaching style as an effective pedagogical approach that can be developed and em ployed by others, however, it m ust be understood as a set of strategies rather than the incidental by-product of genius or eccen tricity. This paper therefore exam ines J ohn Cage’s work as an educator through the lens of Frierian critical pedagogy in order to understand Cage’s approach to teaching, not as the extension of an idiosyn cratic artistic and philosophical vision, but as a m ethodology, an educational tem plate that positions art as a tool for what Freire would term conscientização, critical inquiry into the nature of our social situation and our world. This com parison reveals the broader educational im portance of experim entalism , indeterm in acy, and interdisciplinarity, and in doing so m akes it possible to separate the sociopolitical potential of Cage’s teaching from the lim itations of his own aesthetics and politics. The im pulse behind such a study lies in the conviction that Cage’s critical pedagogy has a relevance and in strum entality that extends to com m unities beyond the im m ediate reach of experim ental m usic, and that, even in the work of Cage, enough distinction can be m ade between delivery m ethod and content that his innovative Muller, Otto. 20 15. That entertainm ent called a discussion: The critical arts pedagogy of J ohn Cage. Action, Theory , and Criticism for Music Education 14(2): 122– 44. act.m aydaygroup.org/ articles/ Muller14_ 2.pdf Action, Criticism , and Theory for Music Education 14(1) 127 teaching m ethods m ight be successfully applied in contexts and com m unities wherein the specific content of his teaching (for exam ple, in its relationship to Western classical m usic, to Zen philosophy, to a specific m om ent in an avant-garde) is less relevant. Accordingly, it is an an alytic project that can be broken down into the following steps: 1. A discussion of Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, that highlights the specific structures, ends, and approaches that are essential to critical pedagogy. 2. An effort to ascertain the key aspects of Cage’s teaching through the analysis of three different teachin g scen arios. 3. A discussion of Cage’s m ethodology in reference to Freire’s principles, identifying a set of teaching practices that serve the ends of critical pedagogy. Pa u lo Fre ire an d Critical Pe d ago gy Paulo Freire’s pedagogical theory is grounded in his experience teaching basic literacy in im poverished rural com m unities in Brazil. After studying law, philosophy an d the psychology of language, Freire taught Portuguese in a secondary school and in 1961 went on to establish an d direct the Cultural Extension Service of the University of Recife, a program that focused on adult literacy (Gadotti 1994). In this role, he developed an approach to adult literacy in which the educator first engaged in dialogue with the com m unity, creating a catalogue of words that were particularly salient within that com m unity, and then based literacy education around the m eanings that these words and concepts held for the com m unity, offering the act of writing as a m eans of articulating and defining reality. Freire’s m ethod was so successful that he was invited by the President and Education Minister to set up a nation-wide literacy program in 1963, and was forced into exile the following year when a coup brought a right-wing m ilitary regim e into power. In exile, Freire developed his philosophy of education into the sem in al text The Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Fundam ental to Freire’s theory is a critique of what he term s “the ‘banking’ concept of education, in which the scope of action allowed to the students extends only as far as receiving, filin g and storing the deposits” (Freire 1970 , 2). In a ‘banking’ Muller, Otto. 20 15. That entertainm ent called a discussion: The critical arts pedagogy of J ohn Cage. Action, Theory , and Criticism for Music Education 14(2): 122– 44. act.m aydaygroup.org/ articles/ Muller14_ 2.pdf Action, Criticism , and Theory for Music Education 14(1) 128 structure, the teacher acts as a source of knowledge and authority, presenting “reality as if it were m otionless, static, com partm entalized, and predictable” (71). This type of educational delivery m irrors structures of oppression in the world, and does not develop the agency of the student. One essential goal of critical pedagogy therefore is to replace a ‘banking’ m odel of education with a genuine dialogue between teacher and students. For this to have integrity, the teacher m ust be engaged in new learning alongside and in partnership with the student. Freire cites the im portance of “co-intentional education,” wherein “teachers and students . . . co-intent on reality, are both Subjects, not only in the task of unveiling that reality, and thereby com ing to know it critically, but in the task of recreating that knowledge” (69). Dialogue exists not only in the relationship between teacher and student, but as the m echanism through which the world is nam ed and transform ed. Freire defines dialogue as the “encounter between [people], m ediated by the world, in order to nam e the world” (88) and points out that it is in nam ing the world that we transform it and that we affirm our own hum anity and significance. The specific role of the educator within this dialogic context is to present problem s and questions that stim ulate discussion and inquiry, that are alive for the teacher as well as the student. Freire em phasizes that these problem s should not be abstract, but rooted in the world. Consequently, they do not sim ply dem and theoretical solutions but solutions that are put into action. The learn ing occurs in the dialogue between teachers and students, but also as experiential discovery when theory is actualized, a com bination which Freire term s “praxis.” Freire writes: Apart from inquiry, apart from the praxis, individuals cannot be truly hum an. Knowledge em erges through invention and re-invention, through the restless, im patient, continuing, hopeful inquiry hum an beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other. (72) Freire’s writing em phasizes the fact that traditional, ‘banking’ m ethods of education are com plicit in larger structures of m arginalization. The changes he advocates are therefore politically instrum ental. He writes that, “to exchange the role of depositor, Muller, Otto. 20 15. That entertainm ent called a discussion: The critical arts pedagogy of J ohn Cage. Action, Theory , and Criticism for Music Education 14(2): 122– 44. act.m aydaygroup.org/ articles/ Muller14_ 2.pdf Action, Criticism , and Theory for Music Education 14(1) 129 prescriber, dom esticator, for the role of student am ong students would be to underm ine the power of oppression” (75). It is im portant to understand that em powering students to becom e creators of knowledge actually transform s the nature of the knowledge itself. Rather than presenting a static worldview that consists of accepted abstractions and rote facts, produced by absent experts in isolated disciplines (Florence 1998), critical pedagogy works inductively from the com plex experiences of those engaged in the dialogue. Freire (1970 ) writes: When people lack a critical understanding of their reality, apprehending it in fragm ents which they do not perceive as interacting constituent elem ents of the whole, they cannot truly know that reality. To truly know it they would have to reverse their starting point: they would need to have a total vision of the context in order subsequently to separate and isolate its constituent elem ents and by m eans of this analysis achieve a clearer perception of the whole. (10 4) This sort of holistic engagem ent with experience reveals “that reality is really a process, undergoing constant transform ation” (75) and it requires interdisciplinary perspectives to be apprehended as such. By refram ing education as knowledge creation, as opposed to knowledge transm ission, and developing pedagogical approaches to include students in this process, Freire’s critical pedagogy aim s to transform the very structure of knowledge. Henry Giroux (20 0 6) writes: Critical pedagogy m akes clear that schools an d other educational spheres cannot be viewed m erely as instructional sites, but m ust be seen as places where culture, power, and knowledge com e together to produce particular identities, narratives, and social practices. (4) For the analysis of J ohn Cage’s teaching, this cursory introduction to Freire’s critical pedagogy is sufficient to outline four central principles: 1. Co-intentional education, rooted in dialogue. 2. Problem -posing education, rooted in praxis. 3. A holistic engagem ent with “an individual’s contextual reality,” (Freire 1970 , 10 4) rather than a fragm ented worldview based in the distinct tenets of academ ic disciplines. Muller, Otto. 20 15. That entertainm ent called a discussion: The critical arts pedagogy of J ohn Cage. Action, Theory , and Criticism for Music Education 14(2): 122– 44. act.m aydaygroup.org/ articles/ Muller14_ 2.pdf Action, Criticism , and Theory for Music Education 14(1) 130 4. Education as “a m oral and political practice that… calls us to venture beyond ourselves and create the possibilities for social transform ation” (Giroux 20 0 6, 64). J o h n Cage as a Te ach e r To discuss these principles in relationship to Cage’s teaching, it is necessary to identify the patterns and m ethods that characterize his pedagogical approach. Cage’s career as an educator spans fifty years and at least as m any institutions and m odalities. This study will focus on those educational engagem ents where Cage had the opportunity to work with students over an extended period of tim e, rather than the num erous singleday sem in ars an d lectures through which he introduced his own work and the work of colleagues. The m ost prom inent of these extended teaching engagem ents are his m entorship of the com poser Christian Wolff, beginning in 1950 , and his course in “Experim ental Com position” at the New School for Social Research, which Cage offered m any tim es between 1956 to 1961. A third exam ple of Cage’s teaching can be drawn from his diary of the Em m a Lake Music Workshop in 1965, cited at the beginning of this paper. While this even t is less sign ificant in the corpus of Cage’s teaching, it offers a well-docum ented account of Cage’s work within the context of a weeklong residency, a recurrent form at in Cage’s later work as a teacher, as well as providing a third point in the chronology of Cage’s developing pedagogical practice. Though these three exam ples are not com prehensive, these three vignettes: Christian Wolff’s description of private lessons with Cage, Allan Kaprow’s account of Cage’s Experim ental Com position course at the New School for Social research, and Cage’s own diary of the Em m a Lake Music Workshop, are sufficient to outline som e essential m ethods and approaches that Cage em ployed. Priva te Le s s o n s , 19 50 Christian Wolff was one of the few private students that Cage took on throughout his career (Wolff and Patterson 1994). They, of course, went on to becom e colleagues and key figures in the New York School, along with Morton Feldm an, David Tudor, and Muller, Otto. 20 15. That entertainm ent called a discussion: The critical arts pedagogy of J ohn Cage. Action, Theory , and Criticism for Music Education 14(2): 122– 44. act.m aydaygroup.org/ articles/ Muller14_ 2.pdf Action, Criticism , and Theory for Music Education 14(1) 131 Earle Brown. In an interview with David Patterson, Wolff described his experience as a 16 year-old com position student. Cage looked over Wolff’s m usic an d took him on as a student at no cost (a generosity that Schoen berg had exten ded to Cage when he was a student), assigning him three projects: 16th century species counterpoint exercises, the com pletion of an analysis of Webern’s Sym phony that Cage had already begun, an d com position exercises in the use of Cage’s “rhythm ic structure” technique (60 ). One com position problem , for exam ple, was to write a m onophonic m elody that outlined a specific form al structure and used only five notes. Wolff reports that they soon gave up the counterpoint exercises. He had been developing a variety of controlled system s in his com positions and he claim s that, After five or six weeks of bringing in these com positions, [Cage] said, “Well, the m ain point about doing things like counterpoint exercises is to teach you about the notion of discipline and organization; not to use the counterpoint necessarily, but just the principle of logical organization. You seem to be working that out for yourself in different ways, so why don’t you just do that?” (60 ) After giving up the counterpoint exercises and com pleting the Webern analysis, they m et regularly and talk about Wolff’s com positions. Wolff describes it as an inform al engagem ent: “It was basically just an exchange; he would tell m e about what he was doing, an d we’d exchange inform ation and be together”(60 ). Wolff goes on to discuss the relationships that he, Cage, Feldm an, and Brown m aintain ed throughout their careers, describing the “New York School” as a “a m utual support group” and “interactive situation” (71) for negotiating the anxiety in herent in creating work that is unlike anything that already existed. In this context, Cage acted as both a colleague and a facilitator, organizing the concerts through which these com posers gained their initial exposure. Throughout the interview, Wolff exhibits som e am bivalen ce about the influence that Cage’s teaching had upon him . On the one hand, he claim s that, “Cage is [a] com poser who in som e sense has no influence whatsoever in the strict sense of people writing m usic that is like J ohn Cage’s m usic. It just doesn’t happen” (Wolff and Muller, Otto. 20 15. That entertainm ent called a discussion: The critical arts pedagogy of J ohn Cage. Action, Theory , and Criticism for Music Education 14(2): 122– 44. act.m aydaygroup.org/ articles/ Muller14_ 2.pdf Action, Criticism , and Theory for Music Education 14(1) 132 Patterson 1994, 73). At the sam e tim e, however, he points to two specific ways in which Cage’s instruction shaped his own m usic, saying: “In m y own developm ent, the idea of exploring com es from Cage,” (62) and, “one of the im portant things I really learned from him is this notion that he never regarded a piece as finished until it was perform ed” (71). Christian Wolff articulated this am bivalence m ore pointedly at a sym posium at Mills College on Cage’s influence. He identified Cage’s im pact in term s of “negative influence” and facilitation, through which Cage allowed those in his orbit to be m ore fully them selves: i.e. to experim ent, explore, and go beyond his own aesthetic endeavors, “opening . . . space for other people to do their own work and do it in the best possible way” (Bernstein and Hatch 20 0 0 , 177). N e w Sch o o l fo r So cial Re s e arch , 19 56 At this sam e sym posium , Allan Kaprow gave an account of his experience as a student in Cage’s Experim ental Com position class at the New School for Social Research in New York City. He recounts that in a typical class, “student works were im m ediately perform ed by everyone, including Cage” (Bernstein an d Hatch 20 0 0 , 169). In his own account, Cage (1970 ) confirm s that “after the first two classes, generally, the session s were given over to the perform ance and discussion of student works” (119). Kaprow goes on to characterize Cage’s teaching in term s of his earnest interest in new ideas and experiences, and his eagerness to suggest projects that m ight elicit unforeseen results. He notes: On the pedagogical level Cage was very helpful . . . He introduced m e to a kind of perm issive teaching that I had not expected from a specialist in som e kind of art. . . . To the best of m y m em ory, Cage never assigned anything; . . . but he also suggested possible hom ework projects such as “prepare a two m inute piece for barely audible sounds.” It was like a playground. It was really m arvelous; som eone cam e up with som e kind of plan and we all carried it out. (Bernstein and Hatch 20 0 0 , 171) J ust as Wolff had observed that the com positional exercises that Cage suggested were related to Cage’s own com positional projects of the tim e, Kaprow notes that m any of the pieces that the class worked on at that tim e were involved with Cage’s interest in Muller, Otto. 20 15. That entertainm ent called a discussion: The critical arts pedagogy of J ohn Cage. Action, Theory , and Criticism for Music Education 14(2): 122– 44. act.m aydaygroup.org/ articles/ Muller14_ 2.pdf Action, Criticism , and Theory for Music Education 14(1) 133 apparent silence and the listener’s sensitization to sound. In retrospect, it is also likely that Cage’s shift toward theater 3 in the late 50 s and early 60 s reflects, in part, his engagem ent with this class, with the regular am ateur perform ances of brief concept pieces written and perform ed by students who would go on to form Fluxus. 4 On the topic of Cage’s influence Kaprow states: “I think the profoundest influence on m e an d, I suspect, on m any, m any others who have been touched by J ohn Cage is that it doesn’t m atter if you m ake m usic, or art, of any kind. . . . J ohn Cage the artist m ade it possible to give up art” (Bernstein and Hatch 20 0 0 , 173). Em m a Lake Mu s ic W o rks h o p , 19 6 5 In the article “Diary: Em m a Lake Music Workshop 1965,” cited at the beginn ing of this paper, Cage provides a daily account of his activities at a residency in Saskatchewan. He describes his curriculum as follows: Plan: To m eet as a group every day at four in the afternoon for discussion of m y current concern: m usic without m easurem ents, sound passing through circum stance. . . . Each person is free to bring m e his w ork, to discuss it w ith m e privately . W hat else happens happens freely : going to get a pail of w ater at the pum p, I pass by the lab; tw o of them are in there talking about Vivaldi. (Cage 1967, 22) In his first group session, he presented his own work, Variations V for which he had not yet created a score, but had a concept involving photoelectric devices that allow dance m ovem ents to trigger recorded sound. This topic reappeared in a lecture he presented on Young, Brown, and Kagel, and in the private instruction he offered a student interested in com puter m usic: (The geologist leaves tom orrow. Our talks involved him in com puter m usic. He had written sym phonic m usic which no orchestra ever played. Now he sees m usic as program m ing.) It seem s a wild goose chase: exam ining the fact of m usical com position in the light of Variations V, seeing com position as activity of a sound system , whether m ade up of electronic com ponents or com parable com ponents . . . in the m ind of m an. (Cage 1967, 22) As the week continued, though, Cage’s focus increasingly reflected ongoing discussions at the workshop. For exam ple, in considering a student’s work with canon an d Muller, Otto. 20 15. That entertainm ent called a discussion: The critical arts pedagogy of J ohn Cage. Action, Theory , and Criticism for Music Education 14(2): 122– 44. act.m aydaygroup.org/ articles/ Muller14_ 2.pdf Action, Criticism , and Theory for Music Education 14(1) 134 perm utation, Cage referred to Lawren ce Alloway’s lecture on system atic art from the previous night. In response to this students’ interest in canon a later classroom discussion was about fugue, which Cage tied back to his interest in “sound passing through circum stance,” by observing the lack of transition between sections. Cage explored the environm ent, presented an educational display on m ushroom s, organized a perform ance of student work and wrote about how this com m unity has becom e “a fam ily,” arriving at a claim about education, art, an d society: What we learn isn’t what we’re taught nor what we study. We don’t know we’re learning. Som ething about society? If what happen s here (Em m a Lake) happened there (New York City), such things as rights and riots, unexplained oriental wars wouldn’t arise. Som ething about art? That it’s experience shared? (Cage 1967, 24) Ca ge ’s Te ach in g as Critical Pe d ago gy These three vignettes of Cage’s teaching reveal a pattern: First, Cage enters the engagem ent with a set of concerns that are relevant to his own work as a com poser and solicits inform ation regarding the artistic interests of his students. Both Allan Kaprow and Al Hansen, m ention that Cage grilled them about w hy they had joined his Experim ental Com position class (Hansen and Higgins 1970 ). And Cage reports that at the first class at Em m a Lake: “We leave our m usic on tables there (each in the group has access to whom , as m usicians, the others are.)” (Cage 1967, 22). These practices parallel the initial exploratory phase of Freire’s literacy work. From this point, Cage presents exam ples and ideas that are relevant to these concerns, both his own and the students’, and suggests exercises to stim ulate artistic experim entation around these concerns. Cage writes of the Experim ental Com position class that, “The catalogue had prom ised a survey of contem porary m usic, but this was given only incidentally and in referen ce to the work of the students them selves or to m y own work” (Cage 1970 , 119). At Em m a Lake, Cage devoted lecture and discussion to the issues that he was facing in the com position of Variation V and to the questions around fugue that were brought up by a student. Muller, Otto. 20 15. That entertainm ent called a discussion: The critical arts pedagogy of J ohn Cage. Action, Theory , and Criticism for Music Education 14(2): 122– 44. act.m aydaygroup.org/ articles/ Muller14_ 2.pdf Action, Criticism , and Theory for Music Education 14(1) 135 Wolff’s experience is revealing in this regard. While Cage began with a set of fixed exercises that were not endogen ic to Wolff’s work, 5 Cage quickly scrapped these assignm ents in order to support the innate rigor within Wolff’s creative output. The type of rote assignm en t he initially assigned does not reappear in Cage’s teaching in either of the later exam ples, but is replaced by the presentation of m ore open-ended questions and exercises. Finally, these exercises and suggestions resulted in perform ed pieces, which stim ulated further discussion and m otivate additional concerns and experim ents. It is worth noting that these exercises were open and that Cage would take them on alongside his students, presenting his own approaches as exam ples, but not authoritative solutions. Dick Higgins, another student in the Experim ental Com position class at the New School writes: “Cage also showed how he had solved som e problem s him self, but told the class he would be quite angry if they copied any of these. Then, to reassure people, he said not to worry, he wasn’t very frightening when he was angry” (Hansen and Higgins 1970 , 122). By tipping his hand in this way, Cage offered a way of understanding or fram ing the exercise, but sim ultaneously provided the “negative influence” that Wolff identifies when he says: “If Cage did som ething, I felt I didn’t have to do it” (Bernstein an d Hatch 20 0 0 , 176). When viewed through the lens of Freire’s theoretical fram ework, Cage’s pedagogical m ethod is a clear exam ple of co-intentional education and problem -posing education. Cage’s dialogic approach, while perhaps m ost obvious in the blurry line that Wolff describes between teacher and colleague, is also evident in Cage’s willingness to put his own concerns on the table and to learn from his students’ work throughout his teaching. Cage (1970 ) writes: During the years I worked at the New School, I was helped by the absence of academ ic rigor there. There were no standards that I had to m easure up to. No one criticized or suggested the alteration of m y m ethods. I was as free as a teacher could be. I was thus able, when opportunity offered, to learn som ething m yself from the students. (119) Muller, Otto. 20 15. That entertainm ent called a discussion: The critical arts pedagogy of J ohn Cage. Action, Theory , and Criticism for Music Education 14(2): 122– 44. act.m aydaygroup.org/ articles/ Muller14_ 2.pdf Action, Criticism , and Theory for Music Education 14(1) 136 It is worth noting, however, that Cage did n ot utilize this freedom , this “lack of academ ic rigor” to absent him self entirely from the role of teacher, to abdicate any responsibility to provide new inform ation or fram e concepts. Instead, he em ployed the concepts that were significant in his own work, for exam ple, trainin g the listener’s sensitization to sound, as an organizing fram ework’s influencing both the exam ples he presented and the exercises he introduced. Sim ilarly, in his discussion of “the geologist’s” work at the Em m a Lake Music Workshop, he aligns the student’s concerns with the organizing fram ework of interactive sound system s. Kincheloe (20 0 4) points out that Freire sim ilarly identifies a m ore directive role for the problem -posing educator within the dialogic relationship: Understanding the student’s being and experiences opens up the possibility for the teacher to initiate dialogues designed to synthesize his or her system ized knowing with the m inim ally system atized knowing of the learner. Thus Freire argues that the teacher presents the student with knowledge that m ay change the learner’s iden tity. (74) Regarding Cage’s readiness to organize students’ m usical concerns within a specific understanding of m usical ontology and experim entalism , Virgil Thom son goes so far as to say that “Cage becam e a kind of conscience im posed on this other artist requiring a strict approach . . . if you choose the next note by nonsubjective m ethods, then you are following what he would call the ways of nature, invention, and novelty” (Dickinson 20 0 6, 117). While Thom son suggests that there are authoritarian overtones in this im posed rigor, Wolff’s account suggests that Cage’s em phasis on “organization and discipline” was focused on the developm ent of the student’s own technique. Moreover, the related em phasis on experim entation and perform ance as a m eans of arriving at new knowledge highlights the im portance of praxis in Cage’s teaching. In this light, rigorous non-subjective m ethods can be understood as a m eans of overcom ing dom inant aesthetic norm s by actualizing theoretical concepts. Freire’s idea of holistic engagem ent is at the center of Cage’s approach to m usic, and enters into his teaching in his inclusion of radically divergent in terdisciplinary perspectives. From the beginning of Cage’s teaching career at the Cornish College of the Arts and Black Mountain College, he taught in intensely interdisciplinary contexts. 6 Muller, Otto. 20 15. That entertainm ent called a discussion: The critical arts pedagogy of J ohn Cage. Action, Theory , and Criticism for Music Education 14(2): 122– 44. act.m aydaygroup.org/ articles/ Muller14_ 2.pdf Action, Criticism , and Theory for Music Education 14(1) 137 Later, at Em m a Lake and the New School, Cage taught m ycology as well as m usic, acting on his assertion “that m uch can be learned about m usic by devoting oneself to the m ushroom ” (Cage 1961, 274). His lectures on m usic an d art frequently included sharp juxtapositions between anecdotes on m ycology, Zen philosophy, and Abstract Expressionist painters am ong other things, and he uses this interdisciplinary form to explicitly critique an academ ic approach to m usic that separates it from its contextual surroundings. In his “Lecture on Som ething,” Cage writes: At the root of the desire to appreciate a piece of m usic, to call it this rather than that, to hear it without the unavoidable extraneous sounds—at the root of all this is the idea that this work is a thing separate from the rest of life, which is not the case. (Cage 1961, 136) On these points, Freire’s critical pedagogy provides a clear fram ework for locating Cage’s pedagogical approach within a broader discourse in education. Despite the very different contexts in which these two m en worked, Cage’s m ethodology provides a m odel of co-intentional, problem -posing, an d holistic education as laid out by Freire’s theory. Som e friction between Cage’s teachin g and Freire’s critical pedagogy em erges, however, when we consider their opin ions about the political agency of education an d the consequent political responsibility of the educator. In certain ways Cage’s attitudes on the politics of education are in line with Freire’s. In 1967, for exam ple, Cage m entions the im portant role that students will play in changing the world (Cage 1967, 164) and in particular, he argues that social realities that appear fixed are in fact constructed ideas open to critique, saying that “there is a tendency when one ‘thinks’ about world society to ‘think’ that things are fixed, cannot change. This non -changeability is im aginary, invented by “thought” to sim plify the process of “thinking” (156). This clearly parallels Freire’s (1970 ) concept of conscientização and his claim that the oppressed “m ust perceive the reality of oppression not as a closed world from which there is no exit, but as a lim iting situation which they can transform ” (49). On the other hand, while Cage (1967) identifies the need for revolution, he aligns him self with the theories of Buckm inster Fuller and Marshall McLuhan, claim ing that “the change will take place ‘spiritually,’ Marshal McLuhan tells us, without our Muller, Otto. 20 15. That entertainm ent called a discussion: The critical arts pedagogy of J ohn Cage. Action, Theory , and Criticism for Music Education 14(2): 122– 44. act.m aydaygroup.org/ articles/ Muller14_ 2.pdf Action, Criticism , and Theory for Music Education 14(1) 138 conscious participation: the m edia we use are effecting the m etam orphosis of our m inds and bringing us to our senses” (164). The underlying assum ption of Cage’s politic is therefore a conviction that the world is im proving as the result of large-scale sociotechnological trends and that the role of education is to sensitize our perception such that we can observe and em brace these inevitabilities. In a 1987 essay, Kaprow writes: “In Cage’s cosm ology . . . the real world was perfect, if we could only hear it, see it, understand it. If we couldn’t, that was because our senses were closed and our m inds were filled with preconceptions. Thus we m ade our own m isery”(Kaprow 20 11, 28). In his discussion of Nam J une Paik’s and Charlotte Moorm an’s interpretation of Cage’s cello piece 26’1.1499”, which exploited the indeterm inacy of the score to insert explicit references to sexuality and current politics, Benjam in Piekut (20 11) points Cage’s discom fort with politically instrum ental applications of experim ental m usic: Because Moorm an’s and Paik’s theatricality was not only an explicitly corporeal but also an explicitly referential display, their split from Cage deepened. This perform ance of 26’ 1.1499” was very m uch a product of its tim e, and in closing the gap between art and life it highlighted a notion of what counted as “life” that was at odds with Cage’s view. (164– 5) Cage’s resistance to such an interpretation of his work speaks to a rigid distinction between art and m aterial sociopolitical concerns, which is in direct conflict with Freire’s understanding of art as a m eans to give language to these concerns. 7 Thus, while Cage acknowledges the role of education in unveiling social reality and facilitating social transform ation, his ideas about the nature of this reality stand in sharp contrast to Freire’s analysis of structural oppression and his call for educational approaches that are not m erely forward-looking, but engaged in the active opposition to these oppressive dynam ics. Cornelius Cardew’s (1974) pointed critique of Cage’s politics highlights this difference between Cage’s political prem ises and Freire’s: “Cage’s m usic presents the surface dynam ism of m odern society; he ignores the underlying tension s and contradictions that produce that surface” (36). There are inherent ten sions within Cage’s political position, between his desire to accept things as they are and his claim that “our proper work now if we love m ankind and the world we live in is revolution” (Cage 1967, ix). And perhaps these tension s do Muller, Otto. 20 15. That entertainm ent called a discussion: The critical arts pedagogy of J ohn Cage. Action, Theory , and Criticism for Music Education 14(2): 122– 44. act.m aydaygroup.org/ articles/ Muller14_ 2.pdf Action, Criticism , and Theory for Music Education 14(1) 139 not need resolution. Wolff has said that “any system of thought will have radical contradictions in the language and nature of the system , and J ohn’s is no exception. . . . The whole dynam ic of Cage’s work and life and thinking is precisely because of such contradictions” (Wolff and Patterson 1994, 82). When pressed on the topic of his political convictions, Cage responded: “No, n o, let’s not be logical. We’re living in this rational-irrational situation. . . . I can invite m yself to do som ethin g frivolous. I can be grand at one m om ent and idiotic the next. There’s no reason why I shouldn’t” (Dickinson 20 0 6, 195). Co n clu s io n s The aim of this study is not to critique Cage’s political position, however, but to abstract Cage’s educational strategies from this position and so that they m ight be applied to the explicitly em ancipatory ends that Freire lays out. Cage’s efforts to free sound from syntax, an d his related interests in silence an d Zen, belong to a particular person and a m om ent in a particular m usic-historical discourse. His com bin ation of inquiry, experim entalism , interdisciplinarity, and the forfeiture of authority, however, can be replicated in contem porary contexts and com m unities wherein these m usical concern s are less relevant. Cage provided a m odel of critical arts pedagogy even as he held the liberatory politics of the 1960 s at arm s reach. By focusing on these patterns within Cage’s teaching it is possible to bring Cage’s revolutionary conception of m usic into dialogue with the contem porary experiential m usic education m odels and to better understand his role in the developm ent of perform ance art pedagogy. 8 As a m odel for em ancipatory education Freirean critical pedagogy is not im m une to critiques pertaining to its political efficacy: a question persists as to the extent to which Freire’s innovations have actually served to redress inequality in a m aterial way. In his essay, “Paulo Freire and the Politics of Postcolionialism ,” Hen ry A. Giroux (1993) argues that Freire’s work does not offer a m ethodological solution, “a recipe for all tim es and places,” (18 2) but that it m odels an d m akes visible a dynam ic engagem ent with postcolonial com plexities and contingencies: “what m akes Freire’s work im portant is Muller, Otto. 20 15. That entertainm ent called a discussion: The critical arts pedagogy of J ohn Cage. Action, Theory , and Criticism for Music Education 14(2): 122– 44. act.m aydaygroup.org/ articles/ Muller14_ 2.pdf Action, Criticism , and Theory for Music Education 14(1) 140 that it does not stand still. It is not a text for but against cultural monum entalism , one that offers itself up to different readings, audiences, and contexts” (184). In the reading provided here, Freire’s critical pedagogy is em ployed as a fram ework in analyzin g Cage’s seem ingly lax approach to the educational situation and identifying the following specific strategies that em power students to create knowledge through art: • • The identification of shared interests and concerns. • The presentation of related exam ples, incorporating a variety of divergent fields. • experim ent. The suggestion of related exercises that allow both teacher and students to The perform ance of these ‘solutions’ and subsequent discussion yielding a refined or expanded set of shared interests and concerns. This is not intended to suggest Cage’s classroom antics should be replicated and institutionalized, but to offer an understanding of J ohn Cage’s innovative approach to arts education, in relationship to Freire’s explicitly political project, that educators and culture workers today m ight engage with seriously and critically. J ust as Cage (1961) observed that he heard m ore accurately as he gave up his tastes in sound, this analysis allows us to separate Cage’s pedagogical practice from his personal tastes, his personality, his political philosophy, his m usic, and to take this practice into the areas of arts education where it is needed m ost, in Wolff’s words: “to do our own work and do it in the best possible way” (Bernstein and Hatch 20 0 0 , 117). Re fe re n ce s Adorno, Theodor. 20 0 7. Philosophy of m odern m usic. Translated by Anne G. Mitchell and Wesley V. Blom ster. London: Continuum . Bernstein, David, and Christopher Hatch. 20 0 0 . W ritings through John Cage's m usic, poetry , and art. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Muller, Otto. 20 15. That entertainm ent called a discussion: The critical arts pedagogy of J ohn Cage. Action, Theory , and Criticism for Music Education 14(2): 122– 44. act.m aydaygroup.org/ articles/ Muller14_ 2.pdf Action, Criticism , and Theory for Music Education 14(1) 141 Buck-Morss, Susan. 1979. The origin of negative dialectics: Theodor W . Adorno, W alter Benjam in, and the Frankfurt Institute. New York: The Free Press. Cage, J ohn. 1961. Silence. Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press. ———. 1967. A y ear From Monday . Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press. ———. 1970 . The New School. In John Cage, edited by Richard Koselanetz. New York: Praeger Publishers. ———. 1973. M: W ritings '67-'72. Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press. Cardew, Cornelius. 1974. Stockhausen serves im perialism , and other articles: W ith com m entary and notes. London: Latim er New Dim ensions. Carr, Tom . 1972. Hartm ut von Hentig: Education as political training. Mother Earth N ew s, J uly/ August. Dickinson, Peter. 20 0 6. CageTalk: Dialogues w ith and about John Cage. Rochester: University of Rochester Press. Dworkin, Craig. 20 0 9. Unheard m usic: Inform ation as m aterial. Self Published. Florence, Nam ulundah. 1998. bell hooks' Engaged Pedagogy : A Transgressive education for critical consciousness. New York: Praeger Publishers. Freire, Paulo. 1970 . Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Continuum International Publishing Group. Gadotti, Moacir. 1994. Reading Paulo Freire: His life and w ork. Albany: State University of New York Press. Giroux, Henry A. 1993. Paulo Freire and the politics of postcolonialism . In Paulo Freire: A Critical Encounter, edited by Peter McClaren and Peter Leonard. New York: Routledge, 1993. ———. 20 0 6. Am erica on the edge: Henry Giroux on politics, culture, and education. Gordonsville, VA: Palgrave Macm illan. Griffiths, Paul. 1995. Modern m usic and after: Directions Since 1945. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hansen, Al, and Dick Higgins. 1970 . On Cage's classes. In John Cage. New York: Praeger Publishers. Muller, Otto. 20 15. That entertainm ent called a discussion: The critical arts pedagogy of J ohn Cage. Action, Theory , and Criticism for Music Education 14(2): 122– 44. act.m aydaygroup.org/ articles/ Muller14_ 2.pdf Action, Criticism , and Theory for Music Education 14(1) 142 Hattie, J ohn. 20 0 8. Visible learning: A sy nthesis of over 8 0 0 m eta-analy ses relating to achievem ent. New York: Routledge. hooks, bell. 1994. Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom . New York: Routledge, 1994. Illich, Ivan. 1973. Deschooling society . Harm ondsworth: Penguin Books. Kaprow, Allan. 20 11. Right living. In Sound, edited by Caleb Kelly. London: Whitechapel Gallery/ MIT Press. Kincheloe, J oe L. 20 0 4. Critical pedagogy prim er. New York: Peter Lang Publishing. Kostelanetz, Richard. 1970 . Conversation with J ohn Cage. In John Cage, edited by Richard Kostelanetz. Preager Publishers. ———. 20 0 2. Conversing w ith Cage. New York: Routledge. Lucero, J orge. 20 0 9. Sound lessons: Selected narratives from the history of J ohn Cage's educative encounters. Unpublished m anuscript. McLaren, Peter. 20 0 0 . Che Guevara, Paulo Freire and the pedagogy of revolution. Lanhan, Maryland: Rowm an and Littlefield. Nebeker, Melia L. 20 0 2. The teacher an d society: J ohn Dewey and the experience of teachers. Education and Culture 18 (2): 15– 16. Nym an, Michael. 1999. Experim ental m usic: Cage and bey ond. Second edition. Cam bridge: Cam bridge University Press. O'Donnell, Marion. Maria Montessori: A critical introduction to key them es an d debates, 134– 8. London: Bloom sbury Academ ic. Piekut, Benjam in. 20 11. Experim entalism otherw ise: The N ew York avant-garde and its lim its. Berkeley: University of California Press. Reitz, Charles. 20 0 4. Liberating the critical in critical theory: Marcuse, Marx, an d a pedagogy of the oppressed: Alienation, art, and the hum anities. In Freireian pedagogy , praxis, and possibilities: Projects for the new m illennium , edited by Stanley S. Steiner, H. Mark Krank, Robert E. Bahruth, and Peter McLaren. New York: Routledge. Rockwell, J ohn. 1983. All Am erican m usic: Com position in the late tw entieth century . New York: Vintage Books. Scocuglia, Alfonso Celso. 20 0 7. The construction of Paulo Freire's pedagogical-political thinking. Paulo Freire Institute Online Journal 2(1): Muller, Otto. 20 15. That entertainm ent called a discussion: The critical arts pedagogy of J ohn Cage. Action, Theory , and Criticism for Music Education 14(2): 122– 44. act.m aydaygroup.org/ articles/ Muller14_ 2.pdf Action, Criticism , and Theory for Music Education 14(1) 143 Torres, Carlos Alberto. 20 14. First Freire: Early w riting in social justice education. New York: Teacher's College Press. Wolff, Christian, and David Patterson. 1994. Cage an d beyond: An annotated interview with Christian Wolff. Perspectives of N ew Music 32(2): 54– 8 7. N o te s 1 Cage began teaching at Mills College in 1938, m ore than thirty years before Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed was published in English. 2 Craig Dworkin identifies the “latent corporate critique” in Silent Pray er (1949, unrealized), Cage’s precursor to is fam ous silent piece 4’33”: “Cage’s plan was to ‘com pose a piece of uninterrupted silence and sell it to Muzak Co. It will be three or four and a half m inutes in length — those being the standard lengths of ‘canned m usic’”) (11). 3 In Modern Music and After: Directions Since 1945 (1995), Paul Griffiths writes that by 1960 “theatre was not just a by-product of his m usic but a prom pting force,” 98. 4 Dick Higgins, J ackson Mac Low, Al Hansen, Allison Knowles, and even George Maciunas 5 Wolff rem arks that Schoenberg had assigned Cage sim ilar counterpoint exercises when he was a student in Wolff and Patterson, Cage and Bey ond, 59. 6 In his unpublished m anuscript: “Sound lessons: selected n arratives from the history of J ohn Cage’s educative encounters,” 20 0 9, J orge Lucero highlights the im portance of interdisciplinarity in the Montessori-influenced philosophy of Cornish College of the Arts and the J ohn Dewey-based philosophy of Black Mountain College. 7 As exhibited for exam ple in his collaboration with Augusto Boal in the developm ent of Theater of the Oppressed. 8 Charles Garoian, for exam ple, explores the intersections of perform ance art and critical pedagogy in Perform ing Pedagogy : Tow ard an Art of Politics. 1999. Muller, Otto. 20 15. That entertainm ent called a discussion: The critical arts pedagogy of J ohn Cage. Action, Theory , and Criticism for Music Education 14(2): 122– 44. act.m aydaygroup.org/ articles/ Muller14_ 2.pdf Action, Criticism , and Theory for Music Education 14(1) 144 Abo u t th e Au th o r Otto Muller serves on the faculty at Goddard College, a radical low-residency college grounded in critical pedagogy and progressive education, where he has taught in the Education, Interdisciplinary Arts, and Individualized Studies program s. He is a com poser whose cham ber m usic and collaborations in dance, film , and theater have been perform ed throughout Europe, Israel and North Am erica. Muller’s research interests include the in tersection of experim ental m usic and critical pedagogy, m usic sem iotics, cross-cultural critiques of “com position” as a category, and the role of m usic education in transdisciplinary studies. Muller, Otto. 20 15. That entertainm ent called a discussion: The critical arts pedagogy of J ohn Cage. Action, Theory , and Criticism for Music Education 14(2): 122– 44. act.m aydaygroup.org/ articles/ Muller14_ 2.pdf