John Cage

“There are two things that don’t have to mean anything; one is music, the other is laughter”
- Immanuel Kant

Interview dated 02/04/1991

I have been reading John Cage's 'Silence' in order to try and help me to understand the foundations of the modern avant garde (improvised) music. Cage is an extremely important figure in the world of experimental music and has influenced a great number of musicians.

http://www.nytimes.com/1987/02/08/arts/the-impact-and-influence-of-john-cage.html

"He asks his questions of the ''I Ching'' and of star maps, indeed of all manner of devices both ancient and random that ''free my mind (ego) from dislikes and likes.'' For both ''Atlas Eclipticalis'' and ''Etudes Boreales,'' Mr. Cage laid transparent paper over maps of the heavens, connecting the dots in ways suggested by the ''I Ching'' (the Chinese tome, when asked, told him to connect different colored stars in different ways), and then transferred those lines, with a minimum of compositional involvement and a maximum of graphic elegance, into conventional musical notation. For ''Ryoanji,'' the tracings were not of star maps but of 15 stones whose arrangement was suggested by the ''I Ching.'' For ''Winter Music,'' the ''I Ching'' was allied to ''imperfections in the paper upon which I was writing.''

Etudes Boreales




Ryoanji (interpreted by Joelle Leandre)20/11/09


John Cage: Freeman Etude #18 (1990) performed by Irvine Arditti


http://www.newalbion.com/artists/cagej/autobiog.html

More than anything I think that Cage was quite a philosopher and his experimental approach has inspired people from many different disciplines. Certainly a person of note in my sound-related research.