mmiller5-Looking Outwards-06

Performance of John Cage’s “Inlets”

“Inlets” is a non-deterministic chance composition composed by John Cage in 1977.  In it, there are three players who hold conch shells of varying sizes filled with water.  By tipping the shells back and forth, it is possible to form bubbles that make a gurgling sound; however, the formation of bubbles is random, causing the piece to be non-deterministic and chance based.  To remove the preferences of the players from the performance, John Cage utilized the novelty of conch shells as an instrument (something the players would have minimal preferences with), helping to ensure that the composition would be more contained and chance based.  I admire John Cage’s re-envisioning of music, that it doesn’t have to be fixed each time that it’s played.  Following the same algorithm for production leads to performances that have the same essence but different products, which I find to be really neat.