StudentShare
Contact Us
Sign In / Sign Up for FREE
Search
Go to advanced search...

Composer- John Cage - Research Paper Example

Cite this document
Summary
Composer John Cage John Milton Cage, who was born in Los Angeles in 1912, was an American composer, music theorist, poet, philosopher and a pioneer of chance music, electronic music, as well as non-standard use of musical instruments, and is best known for his piece 4’33” (often described as “four and a half minutes of silence”, and to which has probably lead his realisation of imposibility of silence) John Cage is known to have been one of the leading figures of the post-war avant-garde…
Download full paper File format: .doc, available for editing
GRAB THE BEST PAPER93.9% of users find it useful
Composer- John Cage
Read Text Preview

Extract of sample "Composer- John Cage"

Download file to see previous pages

He dropped out from college in his second year and sailed to Europe where he wrote his first pieces of music, but not liking them, he left them behind on his return to America, after being in Europe for 18 months. Cage was tutored by Schoenberg for free on the condition he “devoted his life to music”, which Cage readily agreed, but after two years he stopped his lessons because of the fact that he had no feeling for harmony. After that, he began to experiment with percussion instruments and gradually made the rhythm the basis of his music instead of harmony, structuring pieces according to the duration of sections.

He went to the Cornish School of Arts in Seattle, Washington in the late 1930’s where he found a job as an accompanist for dancers and was asked to write music to accompany a dance by Syvilla Fort called Bacchanale. He wanted to write a percussion piece but had to write for a piano because there was no pit at the performance venue for a percussion ensemble.While working on the piece, Cage experimented by placing a metal plate on top of the strings of the instrument. He liked the produced sound and eventually he invented the prepared piano with screws, bolts, strips of rubber and other objects placed between the strings of the piano to change the instrument’s character.

It may be that Cage was influenced by his old teacher Henry Cowell who also treated the piano in a non-standard way. For example, asking the performers to strum the strings with their fingers. Widely seen to be his greatest work for prepared piano are The Sonatas and Interludes of 1946-48. Pierre Boulez organized the European premiere of the work and the two composers struck up a correspondence. Unfortunately, this correspondence stopped with a disagreement over Cage’s use of chance in his music.

While being at Cornish, Cage also founded a percussion orchestra for which he wrote his First Construction (In Metal) in 1939, a piece in which loud rhythmic music is created by metal percussion instruments, and the Imaginary Landscape No. 1, which is the first example of using record players as instruments. In later years, Cage wrote a number of other Imaginary Landscape pieces. In order to introduce an element of chance over which he would have no control, Cage began to use the I Ching in the composition of his music.

In the Music of Changes for solo piano in 1951, he used it to determine which notes should be used and when they should be heard. He used chance in Imaginary Landscape No. 4 (1951) as well. This peace was written for twelve radio receivers. Each radio has two players- one that controls the frequency and the other that controls the volume. “Cage wrote very precise instructions in the score about how the performers should set their radios and change them over time, but he could not control the actual sound coming out of them, which was dependent on whatever radio shows were playing at that particular place and time of performance.

”( http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Aleatoric_music) Cage’s friend and colleague from Black Mountain college had produced a series of white paintings while working at the college. These paintings, apparently blank canvases, changed according to varying light conditions in the rooms in which they were hung, the shadows of people in

...Download file to see next pages Read More
Cite this document
  • APA
  • MLA
  • CHICAGO
(“Composer- John Cage Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words”, n.d.)
Retrieved from https://studentshare.org/family-consumer-science/1417411-composer-john-cage
(Composer- John Cage Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 Words)
https://studentshare.org/family-consumer-science/1417411-composer-john-cage.
“Composer- John Cage Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 Words”, n.d. https://studentshare.org/family-consumer-science/1417411-composer-john-cage.
  • Cited: 0 times

CHECK THESE SAMPLES OF Composer- John Cage

American Music Composers

Music is a form of art in which sound is the medium.... It is the voice of a nation that expresses the people's hopes, passions, and dreams.... It is an art deeply rooted in history and culture.... Music may also be defined and influenced by an individual's thoughts, education, familial background, community, and personal experiences. … In America, the song tradition is fairly young in contrast to that of Europe's (The American Art Song n....
10 Pages (2500 words) Essay

Life and Career of Bill Fontana

(Tux Deluxe, 2007)The Concept Of Bill Fontana Vs john cage / Luigi RussoloBill Fontana's is known to be a sound architect with a difference.... When compared to the concepts of modern composer john cage, who did not believe in making use of the sounds of whistles and machine vibrations, the sounds generated by Fontana were based on objects which emitted noise.... Later even john cage admitted to the fact that these noises could be made 'extra musical' through the means of various unconventional devices....
5 Pages (1250 words) Essay

Andy Warhol, Nam June Paik & Walt Disney

Paik's movement towards electronic art has been attributed to a meeting with composer john cage to whom he later paid homage through various works.... This essay discusses the art of Andy Warhol, Nam June Paik and Walt Disney.... One of the greatest single reasons that each of these artists had such an impact on my life was the fact that each of these artists broke barriers and changed perceptions throughout the world....
6 Pages (1500 words) Essay

Why was Fluxus called Fluxus Look at least three Fluxus pieces

The origins of Fluxus lie in the many concepts explored by avant-garde composer john cage as reflected in his dissonant experimental music of the 1950s.... As described rather esoterically in The Fluxus blog (2010), cage popularized a form incorporating “.... ?? While the concept may be familiar to those who study music, cage's importance to the Fluxus movement may be more easily understood when explained through his now famous original experimental piano composition piece, 4' 33” (1952), in which the pianist sits at the piano but does not play for exactly four minutes and...
12 Pages (3000 words) Essay

Education in Artistic Industry: Maryland Institute College of Art

The purpose of this essay "Education in Artistic Industry: Maryland Institute College of Art" is to evaluate the professional opportunities in arts that are being provided by the educational institutions of the US.... The essay would focus on the fields of music and cinema....   … Music as an art is one of the famous and most entertaining works in the art industry....
12 Pages (3000 words) Essay

Life of Jay Greenberg and Others

All in all, the unique character of Tan Dun's music can be described with the words of john cage, who said: “What is very little heard in European or Western music is the presence of sound as the voice of nature.... Tan recognizes being influenced by a number of experimental musicians like Glass, cage, Monk, and Reich.... john O'Mahoney, the author of “The Guardian Profile: Philip Glass”, calls Glass “one of the most influential – and controversial – contemporary composers”, as well as “the founding father of minimalism”....
1 Pages (250 words) Essay

Pollock, Gottlieb and Newman

john cage asked, "Where do we go from here?... Discuss how some of the presented Conceptual Artists AND composer john cage experimented with theater, performance, or concept-driven works/compositions in the 1940s-1970s.... This quote embodied how john cage regarded theatre, performance or concept-driven works/compositions.... This work is an example how john cage extended the possibility of performances in theatre to include a broader sense of art and performance in music....
2 Pages (500 words) Essay

Creating Narrative Without Text

This paper explores theories expounded by Jerzy Grotowski, Antonin Artaud and Merce Cunningham.... nbsp; Literary criticism, narrative, is shaped by the cultural, economic and political spheres of the greater community.... nbsp; For most people, the narrative is thought to be a matter of text or words....
11 Pages (2750 words) Assignment
sponsored ads
We use cookies to create the best experience for you. Keep on browsing if you are OK with that, or find out how to manage cookies.
Contact Us