John Cage
John Cage
John Milton Cage Jr.was an American composer, music theorist, writer, 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...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionComposer
Date of Birth5 September 1912
CountryUnited States of America
Why do you not do as I do? Letting go of your thoughts as though they were the cold ashes of a long dead fire?
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.
Now that we have everything we need, we discover that there is almost nothing that we have that we want
Artists talk a lot about freedom. So, recalling the expression "free as a bird," Morton Feldman went to a park one day and spent some time watching our feathered friends. When he came back, he said, "You know? They're not free: they're fighting over bits of food.
I remember loving sound before I ever took a music lesson. And so we make our lives by what we love.
The world, the real is not an object. It is a process.
The function of Art is to imitate Nature in her manner of operation. Our understanding of her manner of operation&Rdquo; changes according to advances in the sciences.
The white paintings came first; my silent piece came later.
Not one sound fears the silence that extinguishes it. And no silence exists that is not pregnant with sound.
Combine nursing homes with nursery schools. Bring very old and very young together: they interest one another.
A mind that is interested in changing...is interested precisely in the things that are at extremes. I'm certainly like that. Unless we go to extremes, we won't get anywhere.
Food, one assumes, provides nourishment; but Americans eat it fully aware that small amounts of poison have been added to improve its appearance and delay its putrefaction.
To accept whatever comes, regardless of the consequences, is to be unafraid.
An artist conscientiously moves in a direction which for some good reason he takes, putting one work in front of the other with the hope he'll arrive before death overtakes him.