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John Milton Cage Jr. Essay

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John Milton Cage Jr.

John Cage became famous for his unorthodox theories and very experimental compositions. He was an American composer born in Los Angeles on September 5, 1912. Neither of his parents went to college, and John himself dropped out after a mere two years in college. His father earned a living being an inventor. Cage credits his father, being an inventor, as very influential to the way in which he wrote music. John also considered himself as an innovator and discoverer in the field of music. John Cage took traditional classical music and turned it into a futuristic collection of sounds totally different from what everyone was used to. He has expanded the idea of what sounds constituted music, and was the …show more content…

Cage, in 1938, once conquered the challenge of creating percussion instruments for a dance in a theatre that had no wings or orchestra pit, there was just barely enough room for a small grand piano built into the front left of the audience. Being so limited on space and not being able to neither find, nor fit an African twelve tone row, he invented the prepared piano. The prepared piano he created by adding screws, bolts, rubber, wood and weather striping between the strings of the grand piano. The piano was transformed into a percussion orchestra, with the loudness of that of a harpsichord. Cage later went on to earn awards for "Sonatas and Interludes" which was one of his most important works for the prepared piano in 1946 to 1948. Cage later went on to say "My favorite music is the music that I haven't yet heard. I don't here the music I write: I write in order to hear the music I have [not] yet heard." This quote summarizes his philosophy on indeterminacy. This belief led to the creation of 4'33'', his recording of the sounds around you. The only thing specified is the length of the piece. It is said that he used 4.33 minutes which equals 273 seconds. And --273 centigrade = zero degrees where everything would be completely silent and atoms quite moving. What do you think about this theory? Later John went on studying Zen Buddhism and the "I Ching" which is what steered him more so in the direction of indeterminacy. With this style he would

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