John Cage

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<div class="hatnote">This article is about the composer. For other uses, see <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cage_%28disambiguation%29" title="John Cage (disambiguation)" class="mw-disambig">John Cage (disambiguation)</a>.</div>

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<dd>Not to be confused with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cale" title="John Cale">John Cale</a>.</dd>

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John Cage</div>

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John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_theory" title="Music theory">music theorist</a>, writer, and artist. A pioneer of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indeterminacy_%28music%29" title="Indeterminacy (music)">indeterminacy in music</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroacoustic_music" title="Electroacoustic music">electroacoustic music</a>, and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_technique" title="Extended technique">non-standard use of musical instruments</a>, Cage was one of the leading figures of the post-war <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avant-garde" title="Avant-garde">avant-garde</a>. Critics have lauded him as one of the most influential American composers of the 20th century.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cage#cite_note-1">[1]</a><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cage#cite_note-obit-2">[2]</a><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cage#cite_note-3">[3]</a><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cage#cite_note-4">[4]</a> He was also instrumental in the development of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_dance" title="Modern dance">modern dance</a>, mostly through his association with choreographer <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merce_Cunningham" title="Merce Cunningham">Merce Cunningham</a>, who was also Cage's romantic partner for most of their lives.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cage#cite_note-5">[5]</a><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cage#cite_note-6">[6]</a>

Cage is perhaps best known for his 1952 composition <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4%E2%80%B233%E2%80%B3" title="4′33″">4′33″</a>, which is performed in the absence of deliberate sound; musicians who present the work do nothing aside from being present for the duration specified by the title. The content of the composition is not "four minutes and 33 seconds of silence," as is sometimes assumed, but rather the sounds of the environment heard by the audience during performance.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cage#cite_note-7">[7]</a><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cage#cite_note-8">[8]</a> The work's challenge to assumed definitions about musicianship and musical experience made it a popular and controversial topic both in musicology and the broader aesthetics of art and performance. Cage was also a pioneer of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prepared_piano" title="Prepared piano">prepared piano</a> (a piano with its sound altered by objects placed between or on its strings or hammers), for which he wrote numerous dance-related works and a few concert pieces. The best known of these is <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonatas_and_Interludes" title="Sonatas and Interludes">Sonatas and Interludes</a> (1946–48).<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cage#cite_note-9">[9]</a>

His teachers included <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Cowell" title="Henry Cowell">Henry Cowell</a> (1933) and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_Schoenberg" title="Arnold Schoenberg">Arnold Schoenberg</a> (1933–35), both known for their radical innovations in music, but Cage's major influences lay in various East and South Asian cultures. Through his studies of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_philosophy" title="Indian philosophy">Indian philosophy</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_Buddhism" title="Zen Buddhism" class="mw-redirect">Zen Buddhism</a> in the late 1940s, Cage came to the idea of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleatoric_music" title="Aleatoric music">aleatoric</a> or chance-controlled music, which he started composing in 1951.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cage#cite_note-10">[10]</a> The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Ching" title="I Ching">I Ching</a>, an ancient <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_classic_text" title="Chinese classic text" class="mw-redirect">Chinese classic text</a> 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".<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cage#cite_note-11">[11]</a>

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<h3>931–36: Apprenticeship</h3>

Cage returned to the United States in 1931.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cage#cite_note-Perloff.2C_Junkerman.2C_p.81-27">[26]</a> He went to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Monica,California" title="Santa Monica, California">Santa Monica, California</a>, where he made a living partly by giving small, private lectures on contemporary art. He got to know various important figures of the Southern California art world, such as pianist <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Buhlig" title="Richard Buhlig">Richard Buhlig</a> (who became his first teacher<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cage#cite_note-Pritchett.2C_Grove-29">[28]</a>) and arts patron <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galka_Scheyer" title="Galka Scheyer">Galka Scheyer</a>.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cage#cite_note-Kostelanetz.2C_p.4-21">[20]</a> By 1933 Cage decided to concentrate on music rather than painting. "The people who heard my music had better things to say about it than the people who looked at my paintings had to say about my paintings", Cage later explained.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cage#cite_note-Kostelanetz.2C_p._4-21">[20]</a> In 1933 he sent some of his compositions to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Cowell" title="Henry Cowell">Henry Cowell</a>; the reply was a "rather vague letter",<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cage#cite_note-30">[29]</a> in which Cowell suggested that Cage study with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_Schoenberg" title="Arnold Schoenberg">Arnold Schoenberg</a>—Cage's musical ideas at the time included composition based on a 25-<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_row" title="Tone row">tone row</a>, somewhat similar to Schoenberg's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve-tone_technique" title="Twelve-tone technique">twelve-tone technique</a>.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cage#cite_note-31">[30]</a> Cowell also advised that, before approaching Schoenberg, Cage should take some preliminary lessons, and recommended <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolph_Weiss" title="Adolph Weiss">Adolph Weiss</a>, a former Schoenberg pupil.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cage#cite_note-32">[31]</a>

Following Cowell's advice, Cage travelled to New York City in 1933 and started studying with Weiss as well as taking lessons from Cowell himself at <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_School" title="The New School">The New School</a>.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cage#cite_note-Pritchett.2C_Grove-29">[28]</a> He supported himself financially by taking up a job washing walls at a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooklyn" title="Brooklyn">Brooklyn</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YWCA" title="YWCA">YWCA</a>.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cage#cite_note-Kostelanetz.2C_p.7-33">[32]</a> Cage's routine during that period was apparently very tiring, with just four hours of sleep on most nights, and four hours of composition every day starting at 4 am.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cage#cite_note-Kostelanetz.2C_p.7-33">[32]</a><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cage#cite_note-Pritchett.2C_p.9-34">[33]</a> Several months later, still in 1933, Cage became sufficiently good at composition to approach Schoenberg.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cage#cite_note-35">[n 2]</a> He could not afford Schoenberg's price, and when he mentioned it, the older composer asked whether Cage would devote his life to music. After Cage replied that he would, Schoenberg offered to tutor him free of charge.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cage#cite_note-36">[34]</a>

John Cage later pioneered the subject of Experimental Composition at the school.[14]

John Cage

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