I like John Cage

            Let me begin by saying that I like John Cage. I’ve never met the guy but I like him.  His work has definitely challenged me to broaden my definition of what music is. Cage has really raised some questions for me. Are you ready for some really deep thoughts? As human beings we experience a piece of music in time. What if God (I believe in God) experiences music differently? If God exists out of time and views time differently than couldn’t all the sounds in the world be viewed as one big piece of music? Think about it, if you took a song perhaps and made the tempo really, really slow than it wouldn’t really appear to be a created piece of music with rhythm, harmony etc. Couldn’t all the sounds from the dawn of time be exponentially sped up and maybe appear to be a deliberate piece of music? Every voice, the chirp of every bird, the sound of every leaf rustling in the wind, every drop of rain, every cry, every foot step, the sounds of every war, and, well you get the point. Perhaps all of time is one big piece of music. I wonder if John Cage ever thought about stuff like that, I think he probably did.

            Ok, next thought. I was intrigued by Cage’s method. Cage relied on chance for many of his pieces. I think of how often I get so caught up on my work ending up just like the picture or sound I have in my head.  I admire how Cage embraced things just happening by chance. He allowed himself to be free to things just happening in his work and didn’t feel he had to make everything fit into society’s preconceived idea of what music has to be like. I was also intrigued by Cage’s unconventional method of notation. I’ve always been intimidated by making music because I had trouble reading it from an early age. The thought never occurred to me that I could write music in a way that made sense to me like John Cage did. I saw a documentary about Kanye West once and he, like Cage, writes his music in his own format. Both of them use a very unconventional but visual way of writing music. I’d like to develop my own.

            I think anything can be music. Have you ever noticed how little kids just like banging on things? When I was like a year old or something I loved to take the pots and pans out of the cupboard and bang on them like drums. According to my mother I absolutely loved it and got so much satisfaction out of it. I think John Cage was onto something very innate in human beings. We are born with a fascination with creating and experiencing sound. As we grow we develop certain tastes and expectations from music and loose that childlike wonder with just making sound without any preset idea of what it is supposed to sound like. I think Cage was reversing that tendency in himself and encouraging others to do so along the way. I think of some more modern electronic artists I like Aphex Twin, Plaid and Square pusher who have taken similar albeit less extreme approaches to making music this way. I’m sure when many heard these artists for the first time they replied, “this is just a bunch of noise.” How much more would they be challenged by John Cage. I think Cage’s work was really about sonic liberty at some level.

            The biggest thing that struck me about John Cage was the fact that he collaborated with a lot of people and they all really liked him. I think you’d have to be a really likeable guy to get so many people to work with your unconventional methodology and challenging ideas. But that’s what we see in John Cage’s career.   That’s something a lot of artists lack. Cage didn’t cop an attitude when people didn’t get him. He kept right being nice and easygoing and people were drawn to him despite his unconventional methodology. I want be like that. I want to be like John Cage.