John Cage "Bacchanale, for prepared piano"

Some day we all will be like John Cage. In the meantime, I think he would want us to enjoy hearing sounds, and probably not argue about them.

Mr. Cage did, by the way, study art, architecture and so forth, philosophy of Zen with Dr. D.T. Suzuki, and music with Arnold Schoenberg and others. It isn't as though his compositions came from a position of ignorance.

Music can basically just be organized sound.

Nice vid.. it does work well as film music, doesn't it. Re: the raging discussion here. Of course JC's (Cage, not Jesus) definition of music must have been mentioned already: "It's music if you think it's music". Sounds flip, but it's true! Music is in the perception, not the creation. Stravinsky said, in his "Poetics of Music" that birds do not make music, just animal sounds (how he knows is a mystery!). Birds don't make music for HIM, but do for others if they LISTEN for it! Case closed.

@lockedandlogan What about computer algorithms that are designed to compose music without human input? C major in common time from a computer cannot possibly be considered music, right?

@lockedandlogan Check out the score; I believe it's in two movements and each one says, "tacet." Cage composed the score and had it published. It's in the repertoire and whining about it on youtube isn't going to make it go away. "...because there are qualifications that need to be met. There needs to be rhythms, harmony, a melody, etc." "My point isn't that there needs to be a definition for music..." You like to play both sides of the fence.

So he wrote do nothing on paper. You fucking showed me.

Playing both sides of the fence, you being a twat and not listening to me explain myself, same thing, right?

Fuck you. You are so goddamned irritating.

You play both sides of the fence by saying, "music needs to meet my qualifications" and then by saying, "I never said music has to be defined." Good luck earning a music degree or otherwise convincing people that your personal taste is absolute.

@lockedandlogan Schoenberg said this of cage, "Of course he's not a composer, but he's an inventor—of genius." Cage studied harmony with Henry Cowell and Adolph Weiss in order to prepare a sufficient vocabulary to study with Schoenberg. Cage could not afford Schoenberg's lesson rates and out of admiration for Cage's enthusiasm, Schoenberg agreed to teach him for free. Schoenberg was only skeptical of Cage's compositional potential because his experience with Western harmony was limited.

The music does exist, but he isn't creating it as much as making the listener aware of something they didn't create. It would be like teaching somebody to play an instrument, them playing something and you claiming you composed it. Interesting concept, but I wouldn't call it composition.

@deadinapark Then perhaps you should take a look at my response to his post.