John Cage was an American composer who desired radically different music from his time. He studied music but believed he had no feeling for harmony. Cage experimented with chance-based composition and incorporating unexpected sounds. One of his earliest works, Imaginary Landscape No. 1 from 1939, used phonographs, cymbals, and muted piano. His famous 4'33" from 1952 consisted of three silent movements, allowing the ambient sounds of the environment to be the music. Cage also experimented with altering instruments, as in his early work First Construction in Metal from 1939 which used percussion with a fixed rhythmic structure.

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