I get wanting to be creative. Take risks. Creativity and risk are immensely important factors in the evolution of ideas. And its those people who think creatively and take bigger risks, that change the world.
John Cage was a man of risk. He wrote his own history and made his own rules. College? Dropped out. In explanation, he stated " I received the highest grade in the class. That convinced me that the institution was not being run correctly. I left." And Silence? His music. "I found out by experiment... that silence is not acoustic. It is a change of mind, a turning around. I devoted my music to it. My work became an exploration of non‑intention"
Read more of Cage's biography and autobiography.
In silence, Cage found music, heard music and made music. In one of his most famous compositions four minutes and thirty three seconds, Jonathan Cage sat at the piano. The noises in the auditorium filled the air and wrote music that could never be repeated. Cage's composition ripped apart pre-exisitng notions of what music is. He pioneered the use of electronic music by creating bits of electronic sound bytes. Take a listen to the electronic sounds here.
Cage also significantly increased the use of the prepared piano. The prepared piano "turns a piano into a percussion instrument by inserting objects between the strings" according to Alex Ross, music critic for The New Yorker "His intricacy of rhythm is really astounding," Ross says, "and the quality that separates him from a great many other composers, even some of the greatest in the classical canon."
Read more here.
For John Cage, creativity and risk were a part of every day life. He didn't intend to change American music, but his willingness to take risks allowed him to shape the future of the way people look at, define and hear music. And silence.
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