John Cage

Author profile

born

September 05, 1912 in Los Angeles, California, The United States

died

August 12, 1992

gender

male

website

http://ronsen.org/cagelinks.html

genre

Arts & Photography, Poetry, Philosophy

influences

Norman O. Brown, Ananda Coomaraswamy, Merce Cunningham, Marcel Duchamp...more

About this author

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John Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, philosopher, poet, music theorist, artist, printmaker, and amateur mycologist and mushroom collector. A pioneer of chance music, electronic music and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde. Critics have lauded him as one of the most influential American composers of the 20th century. He was also instrumental in the development of modern dance, mostly through his association with choreographer Merce Cunningham, who was also Cage's romantic partner for most of their lives.

Cage is perhaps best known for his 1952 composition 4′33″, the three movements of which are performed without a single note being played. The content of the compo...more John Milton Cage Jr. was an American composer, philosopher, poet, music theorist, artist, printmaker, and amateur mycologist and mushroom collector. A pioneer of chance music, electronic music and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde. Critics have lauded him as one of the most influential American composers of the 20th century. He was also instrumental in the development of modern dance, mostly through his association with choreographer Merce Cunningham, who was also Cage's romantic partner for most of their lives.

Cage is perhaps best known for his 1952 composition 4′33″, the three movements of which are performed without a single note being played. The content of the composition is meant to be perceived as the sounds of the environment that the listeners hear while it is performed, rather than merely as four minutes and thirty three seconds of silence, and the piece became one of the most controversial compositions of the 20th century. Another famous creation of Cage's is the prepared piano (a piano with its sound altered by placing various objects in the strings), for which he wrote numerous dance-related works and a few concert pieces, the best known of which is Sonatas and Interludes (1946–48).

His teachers included Henry Cowell (1933) and Arnold Schoenberg (1933–35), both known for their radical innovations in music and coincidentally their shared love of mushrooms, but Cage's major influences lay in various Eastern cultures. Through his studies of Indian philosophy and Zen Buddhism in the late 1940s, Cage came to the idea of chance-controlled music, which he started composing in 1951. The I Ching, an ancient Chinese classic text on changing events, became Cage's standard composition tool for the rest of his life. In a 1957 lecture, Experimental Music, he described music as "a purposeless play" which is "an affirmation of life – not an attempt to bring order out of chaos nor to suggest improvements in creation, but simply a way of waking up to the very life we're living".(less)

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Books by John Cage

Average rating: 4.26 · 965 ratings · 84 reviews · 47 distinct works

	Silence: Lectures and Writings 4.36 avg rating — 552 ratings — published 1961 — 12 editions	My rating:
	A Year from Monday: New Lectures and Writings 4.19 avg rating — 70 ratings — published 1967	My rating:
	M: Writings '67-'72 4.12 avg rating — 41 ratings — published 1973 — 3 editions	My rating:
	Empty Words: Writings '73-'78 4.27 avg rating — 33 ratings — published 1979 — 4 editions	My rating:
	Musicage: Cage Muses on Words * Art * Music 4.19 avg rating — 27 ratings — 3 editions	My rating:
	For the Birds: John Cage in Conversation with Daniel Charles by John Cage, Daniel Charles 4.24 avg rating — 17 ratings — published 1981 — 4 editions	My rating:
	Composition in Retrospect 3.67 avg rating — 18 ratings — published 2008	My rating:
	Notations 4.40 avg rating — 15 ratings — 3 editions	My rating:
	I-VI: Method Structure Intention Discipline Notation Indeterminacy Interpenetration Imitation Devotion Circumstances Variable Structure Nonunderstanding Contingency Inconsistency Performance ... (Statistics for Industry and Technology) 4.07 avg rating — 15 ratings — published 1990 — 3 editions	My rating:
	X: Writings '79-'82 3.64 avg rating — 14 ratings — published 1983 — 3 editions	My rating:

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Quotes by John Cage

“If you develop an ear for sounds that are musical it is like developing an ego. You begin to refuse sounds that are not musical and that way cut yourself off from a good deal of experience.”
― John Cage

tags: music

96 people liked it

“I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones.”
― John Cage

tags: ideas , inspirational

38 people liked it

“The emotions - love, mirth, the heroic, wonder, tranquility, fear, anger, sorrow, disgust - are in the audience.”
― John Cage, Silence: Lectures and Writings

tags: emotion , music

19 people liked it

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John Cage

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John Cage

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