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In this video, John Cage appears on the very popular television programme I\u2019ve Got A Secret, created in 1952. <\/p>\n
\tThe principle of this television game is to invite two participants per programme, sometimes in the presence of a guest star. Each player is invited to have the audience guess their \u201c secret \u201d, after whispering it in the host\u2019s ear, while the description of the famous \u201c secret \u201d appears for the television viewers, superimposed on the screen. The audience is invited to guess this \u201c secret \u201d, either through its own questions or through those of the host. After a few minutes, the player gives, as far as possible, a demonstration of this \u201c secret \u201d. <\/p>\n
\tJohn Cage, who is then teaching Experimental Composition at the New School in NYC, announces his secret: \u201c I\u2019m going to perform one of my musical composition\u2026 \/ The instruments I will use are : \/ a Water Pitcher \/ an Iron P\u00efpe, a Goose Call \/ a Bottle of Wine \/ an Electric Mixer \/ a Whistle \/ a Sprinkling Can \/ Ice Cubes \/ 2 Cimbals \/ a Mechanical Fish \/ a Quail Call \/ a Rubber Duck \/ a Tape Recorder \/ A Vase of Roses \/ a Selzer Siphon \/ 5 Radios \/ a Bathtub \/ and A GRAND PIANO. \u201d<\/p>\n
The host, who introduces Cage as \u201c one of the most controversial artistic figures of his time\u201d, then proposes to skip the game of questions and answers and to offer him a free moment of television to give a \u201c demonstration \u201d of his compositional work, which he mistakenly calls \u201c experimental sound \u201d. Cage immediately corrects him, specifying: \u201c experimental music \u201d, before giving his own definition of music, made from \u201c sounds \u201d produced by a series of everyday objects \u2013 whose musicality he will have us discover through a performance of the piece Water Walk.<\/em><\/p>\n The score indicates to the performer a series of actions to be carried out in a given time, the numbers shown above the actions representing seconds.<\/p>\n \n\tThere follows a magnificent manifesto by Cage on the place of the spectator. The host warns: \u201c perhaps some listeners will not be able to bear your music\u2026 Perhaps some will even laugh at you\u201d. And Cage replies: \u201c For me, laughter is comparable to tears \u201d.<\/p>\n
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