Wednesday, August 27, 2008

True Innovation

John Cage and his contemporaries provided a new, different, and often unexpected type of music for their listeners. Cage tended to push the limits of people's listening comfort zones to try to get them to exprience music in a entirely new way. Most music focuses on emotions, I might listen to Pavarotti preforming "Ave Maria" when I'm sad or Five Finger Death Punch's "The Bleeding" if I'm feeling angry. John Cage aviods emotion and instead trys to get his listeners to focus on the sounds in music. If you are able to open yourself up to this new way of listening Cage's music can be exciting. I have more fun listening to Cage's than any other music, with the exception of techno. All other music has lyrics and emotions that distract you from the sounds. "Its Gonna Rain" may be repetitive but at first its a lot of fun to listen to. Hearing seemingly random and unorganized sounds creates a new a delightful listening exprience that you don't have everyday. John Cage's music is different thats why I enjoy it. Even "4:33 " has a type of randomness to it because it can sound completely different every time. I will admit I have actually youtubed "4:33" just to close my eyes and exprience the sounds around me. Cage's prepared piano pieces are a new type of innovation altogether. It changes the sound of the piano so greatly it seems like a completely new instrument. Cage created new types of sounds from different instruments and wrote his pieces by random chances. All these things made Cage's music something all its own and a true innovation in music theory.

John Cage as a personal was as interesting and unique as the music he created. I would have loved to hang out with Cage for a day. He was so clever and used a lot of irony, which is my favorite type of humor. "I Have Nothing to Say and I'm Saying It" makes me laugh inside everytime I read it. When he was asked to explain his statement "Beethoven was wrong" he simply smiled and said, "Beethoven was wrong" and walked away. Cage's wit may possibly unmatched the same way is musical style is.

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