In my last piece on “should I open this sealed John Cage album” I only hinted at, but did not really describe what “HPSCHD” by John Cage and Lejaren Hiller (also apologies to Hiller, who I didn’t even mention) sounded like. It is quite an imposing wall of sound that is hard to approach or comprehend on the first, or second, or who knows how many listens. Here is the first ten minutes of the straight version without the KNOBS program implementation as it appears on the LP:

Yeah, nuts. And not something one would just sit down to and chill out to, although I guess you could try.

One intrepid explorer programmed their KNOBS print out, recorded it, and posted it on YouTube. As you can hear below, the results are quite different than the original. Less wall-of-sound, more dynamic and even, somehow, freakier – as harpsichord and computer tape trade place, disappear, leap back at the listener with a fury. Timbres and volume levels change dramatically. At some points, there is absolutely no sound at all, as this particular KNOBS program instructed the listener-performer to turn the volume all the way down for five, ten, or maybe even fifteen seconds at a time. At other times, all the knobs go to 11.

This version is only 1 of 10,000 possible realizations of this piece (if each individual KNOBS program was executed perfectly). In reality, there are an infinite amount of possible ways “HPSCHD” can turn out based on how the KNOBS programming is being accomplished: whether through music code software that can reproduce it exactly as printed out, or by one person at home on their own stereo, twisting the treble, balance, volume, and bass knobs with wild abandon.

To me I can’t help thinking Cage and Hiller presented the piece as recorded and presented on the LP itself as only meant to get the listener, say 75% of the way there—that it could not be “complete” without listener involvement. The random chance, indeterminacy, listener as performer, performer as listener philosophy that Cage and others in that scene espoused would certainly suggest so. Given how different this one realization of KNOBS is from just what comes straight from the needle and wax without further adjustment makes it almost impossible for me to think about putting “HPSCHD” on my turntable without taking an active role in its playback. Just as I suppose it was meant to be. It’s hard to imagine it could be any way otherwise.