Excerpts from “Towards an Ethics of Improvisation” by Cornelius Cardew (https://www.ubu.com/papers/cardew_ethics.html)

1). Elaborate forms and a brilliant technique conceal a basic inhibition, a reluctance to directly express love, a fear of self-exposure.

2). …for these are, so to speak, suburbs of our language. (And how many houses or streets does it take before a town begins to be a town?) Our language can be seen as an ancient city: a maze of little streets and squares, of old and new houses, and of houses with additions from various periods; and this surrounded by a multitude of new boroughs with straight regular streets and uniform houses.

It is easy to imagine a language consisting only of orders and reports in battle.-Or a language consisting only of questions and expressions for answering yes and no. And imnumerable [sic] others.- And to imagine a language means to imagine a form of life.” [quoted from Philosophical Investigations by Wittgenstein]

3). Love is a dimension like time, not some small thing that has to be made more interesting by elaborate preamble. The basic dream -of both love and music- is of a continuity, something that will live forever. The simplest practical attempt at realising this dream is the family. In music we try to eliminate time psycholgically [sic] to work in time in such a way that it loses its hold on us, relaxes its pressure. Quoting Wittgenstein again: “If by eternity is understood not endless temporal duration but timelessness, then he lives eternally who lives in the present”.

4). My most rewarding experiences with Treatise have come through people who by some fluke have (a) acquired a visual education, (b) escaped a musical education and (c) have nevertheless become musicians, ie play music to the full capacity of their beings.

5). Integrity What we do in the actual event is important -not only what we have in mind. Often what we do is what tells us what we have in mind.

The difference between making the sound and being the sound. The professional musician makes the sounds (in full knowledge of them as they are external to him); AMM is their sounds (as ignorant of them as one is about one’s own nature).

6). Life is a force to be used and if necessary used up. “Death is the virtue in us going to its destination” (Lieh Tzu).