John Cage believed any sound can be considered musical, which contrasted greatly with his mentor, composer Arnold Schoenberg’s opinion. After discovering harmonic sounds, Cage realized he wanted to create his own route rather than the tradition sound type.
Schoenberg told him he’d eventually hit a wall in his discoveries about creating melodies, and Cage felt he could move that barrier. Proven to be one of the most influential artists of the 20th century, Cage became the master of conceptual and avant-garde music, but dabbled in painting art, playing chess, dance, writing, and other aspects of expression, which showed his diversity among the arts.
As discussed in this Idea Channel video, Is Dubstep Avant-Garde Musical Genius, Dubstep became a popular music genre in recent years, and is a form of avant-garde music. Cage’s concept was that if you keep revisiting an art work, whether it pleases the viewer or not, it is beautiful after a while of examination.
Dubstep is in no way traditional, and in many ways conceptual. Cage liked to create different tambers in a sound, and dabbled in instrument exploration. Dubstep is much inharmonic electronic noise, that hasn’t made its way into popular mainstream because most people prefer harmonic sounds. It’s safe to say that Cage would be one of those people likely to appreciate the concept of it.
Cage structured his works by channeling chaotic sounds with the notion of chance, and challenged the way we approach sound. Cage removed the decision-making process of a typical composer. He was in favor of creating a systemic algorithm in each of his pieces with sound and time. Chaotic systems may have a mathematical basis, although they can be complicated. Here’s another example of how Cage’s influence lives on today, with Tallan M.D.’s avant-garde music video.
Cage collaborated with people who believed in his vision, or at least understood it. Marcel Duchamp, a famous French painter, had been a huge influence on avant-garde music. Cage created a film named “Chest Piece”, where he filmed Duchamp’s widow and himself playing a friendly game of chess, proving Duchamp’s influence on Cage was a strong influence on his works.
While Cage’s view that any sound was considered music, Duchamp’s view was that any object, is not disregarded when it comes to being considered an art piece. His longtime collaborator and choreographer Merce Cunningham, emphasized how music and dance were separate, but yet still connected in the expressions of the arts. He felt Cage had the capability to interconnect all literal pieces together.
A great example of avant-garde music meets conceptual art, is Rob Cantor’s “Shia LeBeouf”. Hollywood actor Shia LeBeouf, is the main focus of the song, yet is a cannibal in the song. At the end of the performance, the cameras focus on Shia LeBeouf giving Cantor’s piece a standing ovation, something LeBeouf has been seen doing while watching movies at a theater, and recording himself in the process for the world to see. Taking the idea of Shia LeBeouf the actor, and morphing him into something our imagination can run wild with as far as interpretation, is a way Cage’s influence lives on today.
In his famous 1952 piece ”Four Minutes and 33 Seconds”, Cage pushed every traditional rule of music out the window, and he did it in that time span. A pianist sat at a piano, playing not one second of a note, allowing the audience to indulge in the sounds around them. Whether someone coughed, or moved their seats a little too loud, the point of this piece was to hear just that: the audience’s surroundings, and to challenge what they consider the experience to be. Silence is a form of art, and sound isn’t needed to deliver a message, as Cage explains in the following video.
Though in recent times, Cage felt he has changed his style of musical expression, stating that he’s come a long way since this piece was first performed, proving that music is ever changing. Our idea of music has changed with each passing phase and era, and will continue to do so in my opinion.
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