John Cage : An Experimental American Composer

This speech is Karl Paulnack’s welcoming address for incoming freshman students. He addresses that music isn’t apart of arts and entertainment rather music is an invisible force that helps us piece ourselves together. Paulnack believes that music is an essential part of life and goes to prove it by telling his experiences with it. He describes the first moment he truly understood music and the impact it has on people. Paulnack portrays the day after 9/11 after he struggles to find any meaning in being a pianist. After a long time of questioning himself he observes the city and notices something. He sees that in this time of grief and sadness people are singing. From this he learned that music is a form of expression, it allows people to express their feelings when they have no other words to describe them. Paulnack goes on to describe what he says was the most important concert of his life. He and a friend were playing a concert at a nursing home. During their performance, one man began to cry, it was at that time Paulnack knew the man was a veteran. After Paulnack and his friend finished the piece, they announced that the piece they were playing was Aaron Copland's Sonata, which was a work

In the variety of occasions we tend to listen in a different way and process the sounds that reach us in a different manner. Our main purpose can be to obtain information, engage in a conversation, or just enjoy the sounds we hear (Types of Listening). In the book ‘In Silence: Lectures and Writings’ John Cage argues that we hear mostly noise, which disturbs us when we ignore it and we find it fascinating if we listen to it. Also according to Cage when we make music we just organize the sound, combining different noises from the surroundings, manipulating their frequencies and creating rhythms. (Cage, J. 1961)

Without the human intention, perception, and interpretation of sound, then the existence of music would be imaginary. Music includes talking words in a way that the person creates a sound that is made with the intention of being music (Deutsch, Diana 10-13, Justus & Timothy., 33-40). Besides, people can perceive silence and sound and put them together so as to call the outcome music. In Bakan’s fourth proposition, he identifies the approach as the Human Intention and Perception (HIP) approach (Resnicow, Joel E., 10-22). In other words, the proposition tries to suggest that music is inseparable from the makers; or more specifically the people who perceive and experience it. Bakan gives numerous examples to show that music is a product of human intention and perception. This paper conducts research and gives appropriate examples to show that music is only identified as music if the person is making it has the intention for their words to be music.

Three Important scientific, social, environmental, or cultural events/happenings/issues that affected music making/composition, and how they had an affect on music:

Milton Babbitt and John Cage were both composers who played pivotal roles in the post-World War II Avant Garde music scene and in the pioneering of electronic music. Both composers found their roots and were greatly influenced by German-Jewish composer Arnold Schoenberg, however they both adopted different viewpoints on the relationship between a composer and their audience . Babbitt believed that a composer or creator did not have an obligation to please his or her audience, and that his pieces were intended mostly for professionals capable of understanding the context and intention of his music. Cage on the other hand granted his audience more power and influence, believing that music was a platform on which audiences could utilize their creativity to adopt new ways of perceiving and being aware of the world around them. These stances, as well as the different techniques and methodologies of the composers pitted them on somewhat of a spectrum, with Babbitt and his systematic, modernist ideas that were largely based in the music schools of academic institutions on one side and Cage, with his uncontrollable, radical combinations of Avant Garde sounds on the other side. These ideas on audience construction and relations were also visible in rock music of the 1960’s, particularly in compositions of artists such as Jimi Hendrix and Bob Dylan.

As Alex Ross describes, “Cage love[s] noise” (366). This should be why he decided to alter his piano in a “conceptually violent” and unusual way for Sonatas and Interludes. Though, Cage’s aim was not pure violence, as we are pleased by the “soft sounds” instead of being “battered by some unholy racket” (Ross, 366). I

Everywhere you go and everyone you see is somehow influenced by some type of music. Maybe it's some kind of childhood learned adaption of what type of music influences them, or maybe the way a musician preforms make them feel something. One artist in particular most definitely made an impact on people and caused an uproar in the late sixties. This woman's name was Janis Joplin.

Beethoven contributed one of the most significant musical developments through his fifth and ninth symphonies. He used a musical motive as the basic of his entire piece. (Beethoven described the motive as “Fate knocks at the door”.) It was the first time in history that anyone had done such a thing for a multi-movement piece. Beethoven’s contribution has become a norm in the music world, even to this day.

Looking toward nature, literature, and the visual arts for inspiration, his music created during this time would go on to influence later musicians with its exploration of richer harmonies and less concern with previous music

My position on the "See the Music..." talks affixed to certain programs is neutral. Nevertheless, the one at the start of Saturday's matinee "All Robbins No. 4" program proved arduous and vexatious. After relating some amusing personal experiences and providing the audience with a few intriguing facts about Ravel and his music, Andrew Litton eventually began what suddenly loomed as an interminable discussion of the "Piano Concerto in G" which included snippets played by himself on the instrument. Unlike his case, this piece--atypically--was familiar to me long before attending a performance of Robbins' ballet at NYCB, and I consider its second movement among the most hauntingly beautiful music ever created. (The section during which Robbins has the ballerina execute bourrées forwards and backwards is a supreme musical expression of the pathos of human existence.) Analyzing it before a performance is, to put it kindly, superfluous.

Johann Sebastian Bach had a profound impact on music history. Bach’s music not only influenced composers and musicians of his day, but his music continues to have a great impact on today’s artists. Many musicians use Bach as an inspiration and musical guide for studying composition and technique. Educators formulated the numerous rules and practices taught in formal music education by studying the works of Bach. Some of Bach’s motifs can be heard in modern compositions.

The exploration of the timbral possibilities of the piano as a percussive instrument would be developed later in the 20th century by composers such as John Cage, for example, in his works for prepared piano in the 1940s.

The third argument discusses the idea of framing as a way of organizing sound. For this argument, Davies does not consider David Tudor’s lowering and raising of the piano and therefore framing as organizing sound, he says that “this framing does not count as selection or appropriation of the sounds of a performance of the work” (Kania). This does not make sense to Kania because sounds without framing cannot exactly be called music, but during 4’33” the framing does occur and therefore it does lead to an organization of sound (Kania). The fourth and final argument examines that there must be noise along with the organized sounds in the performance environment for it to be able to be considered organized. Usually, in musical performances, the

There are many elements that led to the expansion of music in the 20th Century. In some ways these elements were all linked to each other and it is difficult to say what events or ideas triggered the huge development of music. For example, World War I and II in the first half of the century lead to the rapid development of technology and communications as well as, eventually, political and social freedom, all aspects which have created changes and growth. The great advances in technology were in part responsible for globalism, although nationalism was also partly a product of the wars. The advent of the Great Wars also produced great emotion.

The composer that I have chosen is Yanni Chryssomallis. I have chosen Yanni because he was very famous for being a Pianist, Keyboardist, and Music Composer. He was born November 14, 1954 in Kalamata Greece to a mother named Felitsa Chryssomallis and a father named Sotiri Chryssomallis. Yanni is still alive today he currently is 63 years old. He dated an actress named Linda Evans. Their relationship lasted from 1989 to 1998 he also had a daughter with her named Krystal Ann, but no one knew about her till she was 32 years old. As a child he developed his own way of writing music and continues to use his own signature 'musical shorthand' to compose pieces even today. He began to play piano when he was six and his parents allowed him to progress at his own speed he also later on in life became a self-taught artist. In November of 1972 he moved to the United States to attend the University of Minnesota and majored in psychology. He also played in a rock band during this time and realized that music was his true calling.