, writer, philosopher and artist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic 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.
"Wherever we are, what we hear is mostly noise. When we ignore it, it disturbs us. When we listen to it, we find it fascinating."
I have nothing to say/ and I am saying it/ and that is poetry/ as I need it.
We need not destroy the past. It is gone.
I remember loving sound before I ever took a music lesson. And so we make our lives by what we love.
A finished work is exactly that, requires resurrection.
A sound does not view itself as thought, as ought, as needing another sound for its elucidation, as etc.; it has not time for any consideration--it is occupied with the performance of its characteristics: before it has died away it must have made perfectly exact its frequency, its loudness, its length, its overtone structure, the precise morphology of these and of itself.
Until I die there will be sounds. And they will continue following my death. One need not fear about the future of music.
Which is more musical, a truck passing by a factory or a truck passing by a music school? Are the people inside the school musical and the ones outside unmusical?
I certainly had no feeling for harmony, and Schoenberg thought that that would make it impossible for me to write music. He said, "You'll come to a wall you won't be able to get through." I said, "Well then, I'll beat my head against that wall." I quite literally began hitting things, and developed a music of percussion that involved noises.