1. John Cage
1912-1992

2. Background
 Desired Work Was Radically Different From
The Music of His Time.
 Studied at Pamona College and Later UCLA.
 Cage Believed He Had No Feeling For
Harmony, Colleagues Believed It Would Have
Made It Impossible For Him To Write Music.
 Cage Worked to Investigate How Music
Composed Through Chance Procedures Could
Become Something Beautiful.

3. Early Experiments
 Involved Altering
Standard
Instruments.
 Put Screws and
Plates Between
Piano Strings.
 Used Radio
Broadcasts, Shells,
Water For Other
Pieces.

4. Imaginary Landscape No. 1
 One of the Earliest Electro-Acoustic Works
Ever Composed.
 Performed With 2 Phono Turntables,
Frequency Recordings, Cymbal, and Muted
Piano.
 First of 5 Imaginary Landscapes Done By
Cage.
 Written in 1939 at the Cornish College of the
Arts in Seattle, WA.

5. Reactions
 Eerie Sensation.
 Constant Frequency Sounds Create a
Pattern.
 Seems to Follow a Narrative Structure
of Sorts.
 Twilight Zone.

6. 4’33”
 Conceived between 1947-1948
 Cage Wished For Listeners to Experience the
Sounds Around Them During the
Performance.
 Piece Entirely Silent, Separated into 3
Movements.
 Example of Automaticism, Piece Separated
From Any Social Connections.
 Composer and Artist Removed From Process
of Creation.

7. Reactions
 Focused on Environmental Sounds.
 Piece Allowed Presence of Sounds
Often Overlooked or Excluded.
 Creation of Piece Derived From
Personal Experience Aside From The
Artist’s Creative Intentions.

8. First Construction in Metal
 Composed in 1939 in Seattle.
 Instruments used were mainly
Percussion.
 First Time Cage Used Fixed Rhythmic
Structures.
 Basic Structure: 4, 3, 2, 3, 4.

9. Reactions
 Bombastic, Definite Rhythm.
 All Sounds Working in Unison.
 Changes in Intensity Affect Mood.
 Supposed Found Objects Add a Great
Deal To The Harmony.

10. Twilight Zone Theme
Bernard Hermann