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
I never had a hat, never wore one, but recently was given a brown suede duck-hunting hat. The moment I put it on I realized I was starved for a hat. I kept it warm by putting it on my head. I made plans to wear it especially when I was going to do any thinking. Somewhere in Virginia, I lost my hat.
I am trying to check my habits of seeing, to counter them for the sake of greater freshness. I am trying to be unfamiliar with what I'm doing.
What I'm proposing, to myself and other people, is what I often call the tourist attitude - that you act as though you've never been there before. So that you're not supposed to know anything about it. If you really get down to brass tacks, we have never been anywhere before.
All great art is a form of complaint
In the nature of the use of chance operations is the belief that all answers answer all questions.
The act of listening is in fact an act of composing.
People who aren't artists often feel that artists are inspired. But if you work at your art you don't have time to be inspired.
A 'mistake' is beside the point, for once anything happens it authentically is.
The material of music is sound and silence. Integrating these is composing.
We're breaking all of the rules, even our own rules, and how do we do that? By leaving plenty of room for X quantities.
It is not irritating to be where one is. It is only irritating to think one would like to be somewhere else.
It is better to make a piece of music than to perform one, better to perform one than to listen to one, better to listen to one than to misuse it as a means of distraction, entertainment, or acquisition of 'culture.'
There is poetry as soon as we realize that we possess nothing.
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.' So I said, 'I'll beat my head against that wall.'