The Material Of Music Is Sound And

To Accept Whatever Comes, Regardless Of The Consequences, Is To Be Unafraid.

Percussion Music Is Revolution. Sound And Rhythm Have Too Long Been Submissive To The Restrictions Of Nineteenth Century Music. Today We Are Fighting For Their Emancipation. Tomorrow, With Electronic Music In Our Ears, We Will Hear Freedom. At The Present Stage Of Revolution, A Healthy Lawlessness Is Warranted. Experiment Must Necessarily Be Carried On By Hitting Anything-tin Pans, Rice Bowls, Iron Pipes-anything We Can Lay Our Hands On. Not Only Hitting, But Rubbing, Scraping, Making Sound In Every Possible Way...what We Can't Do Ourselves Will Be Done By Machines Which We Will Invent.

Composing For The Prepared Piano Is Not A Criticism Of The Instrument. I'm Only Being Practical.

What I'm Proposing, To Myself And Other People, Is What I Often Call The Tourist Attitude - That You Act As Though You've Never Been There Before. So That You're Not Supposed To Know Anything About It. If You Really Get Down To Brass Tacks, We Have Never Been Anywhere Before.

A Sound Does Not View Itself As Thought, As Ought, As Needing Another Sound For Its Elucidation, As Etc.; It Has Not Time For Any Consideration--it Is Occupied With The Performance Of Its Characteristics: Before It Has Died Away It Must Have Made Perfectly Exact Its Frequency, Its Loudness, Its Length, Its Overtone Structure, The Precise Morphology Of These And Of Itself.