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Musical habits include scales, modes, theories
of counterpoint and harmony, and the study of the timbres, singly and in
combination of a limited number of sound-producing mechanisms. In mathematical
terms these all concern discrete steps. They resemble walking—in the
case of pitches, on steppingstones twelve in number. This cautious stepping
is not characteristic of 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.
John Cage
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