Born Sept. 5, 1912 in Los Angeles, California
Died Aug. 11, 1992 in Manhattan, New York

“There are two things that don’t have to mean anything;
one is music, and the other is laughter.”
- John Cage, paraphrasing Immanuel Kant. (Cage agreed with Kant that music and laughter don’t have to mean anything in order to give us deep pleasure.)

Avant garde composer, writer, artist, and philosopher, John Cage was a unique figure whose influence on 20th century music, art, and dance was perhaps even more important than his own artistic output. In fact, his most famous work was 4’33”, a piece composed for piano (or any other instruments!) that consisted of
4 minutes and 33 seconds of absolute silence, divided into 3 movements. So obviously this minimalist loved a good laugh, and the joke doesn’t stop there: 4’33”  has even been included on several CD collections! Cage shared a lifelong partnership, both personally and professionally, with choreographer Merce Cunningham, and the two of them made a lasting impact on contemporary dance. As an artist and printmaker himself, Cage also influenced fellow artists Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, and others in the art world.

Cage studied with Henry Cowell and Arnold Schoenberg, radical composers in their own right.  He taught experimental music at Wesleyan University, where he was affiliated until his death in 1992.  He also taught at Mills College, UCLA, the Cornish College of the Arts, and The New School. Cage was influenced by Indian philosophy, Zen Buddhism, and I Ching, the Chinese classical text on changing events, which he used as a tool for composing chance or aleatory music. As a minimalist composer, he also experimented with found sounds, electronic music, and “prepared” piano (which consisted of sticking nuts, bolts, rubber, plates, etc. between the strings of the piano to create the effect of an entire percussion orchestra). Prepared piano often produced exotic effects resembling mbiras, marimbas, bells, gamelan, wood blocks and other percussion. Listen to Cage’s Sonata for Prepared Piano:

John Cage’s Sonata X for Prepared Piano

Now meet the humorous, iconic John Cage near the end of his life, as he expresses his thoughts about listening, music, sounds. . . and silences:

When famed Broadway songwriter Jason Bert Brown discovered his songs were being “traded” freely online by those who had never purchased a legal copy, he thoughtfully requested that the traders stop the illegal trading. Read this fascinating exchange with a recalcitrant yet extremely bright and articulate teenager. Eleanor’s teenage sense of entitlement is absolutely breathtaking. Her arguments are devoid of any sense of morality (other than her own moral outrage at being asked to remove the illegal songs), yet her rationalizations at stealing other people’s music without paying the $3.99 download fee are worthy of a silver-tongued trial lawyer.  

Please read this exchange in it’s entirety, and more importantly, read it to your own kids and students. I would love to hear from you on how Eleanor’s slippery moral and “aesthetic” arguments for copyright theft either resonate with or repel other teens. The technology is in place for easy illegal “trading” of music: now it’s time to work on how to instill in teens (and adults, I might add) the sense of responsibility, ethics, and control needed to understand and appreciate why copyright violation, though easy, is both illegal and immoral.

This dramatic battle between the composer and the teen is itself worthy of a Broadway play, and a Pulitzer. Read it now:

  FIGHTING WITH TEENS: A Copyright Story

Can music encourage subway commuters to take the Piano Stairway instead of the escalator? Just when you thought you had seen it all, here comes the latest twist of the Fun Theory. This Volkswagon-sponsored experiment employs the “Fun Theory” to influence environmentally friendly, health-conscious consumer behavior. And what can be more fun than a keyboard stairway that plays  the notes of the scale as you race to catch the train! Compose with your feet as you roam up or down (or sideways on the chromatic black keys), and keep the pounds off too with the daily exercise of your musical commute.  Well, enough said. . .we all need a little more music and lots more exercise in our lives.

See and hear for yourself the Piano Keyboard Stairway in the Stockholm subway. Then you’ll understand why most folks opt for the sounds of their own “foot” music in the metro, and forget the “ho-hum” tunelessness of the escalator!

Teaching Tip: Challenge your students to come up with their own “Fun Theory” ideas for injecting fun into worthwhile endeavors. This could be a good cross-curricular project for the music and science teacher. Discuss the pros and cons of how music is used now in public spaces (such as that dreaded omnipresent Muzac). How can spontaneous or planned public music events or tools be used to inspire or uplift us in a noise-filled world? How can music make us really listen and not just deaden the noises of the environment? Post your students’ ideas on this blog, so we can share them with others.

Check out these other upbeat musical surprises in public places:

The Sound of Music in the Antwerp, Belgium train station. During rush hour, this planned musical event caught commuters by surprise, but they soon joined in singing and dancing “Do, a deer, a female deer, re, a drop of golden sun. . .”

Crazy Subway Music. This spontaneous outbreak of music had busy commuters raising their eyebrows and looking askance, until the infectious rhythms had them all joining in. Music is the tie that binds. . .even among normally indifferent and distracted commuters.

How Pandora was Created

The Music Genome Project, founded in 2000 by Tim Westergren, has analyzed the musical attributes or “genes” of  many thousands of songs by musicians of all genres. This “genetic” analysis, performed by musicians and music technologists, includes such structural elements as melody, harmony, rhythm, instrumentation, orchestration, arrangements, lyrics, and more. This fascinating, if bizarre, project has led to Pandora, Internet Radio: the largest online music streaming service. Now you can open Pandora’s box by setting up your own personal “radio station” which plays your favorite music, based on the musicians and composers you like intermingled with music of similar ”genetics.” I set up my own Franz Schubert station, which provides not only Shubertian delights but unexpected gems from John Field, Clara Schumann, Chopin, Fanny Mendelssohn and others. I enjoy the streaming music of my own station, but can add options, vary it, save it, share it, or create new stations according to my mood.  How fun is that!

Listen to my Franz Schubert station now.

Pandora as a Music Listening Tool in the Classroom

To encourage music students to expand their listening experiences, have them set up and name their own Pandora “radio stations,” either individually or in small groups. They can then share their stations and favorite musical discoveries with their classmates, and discuss similarities and differences of the music. Shared music is a great bonding experience with kids. By sharing their personal favorites with those of fellow classmates, everybody wins, because their musical tastes will expand along with their listening experiences. And there’s nothing like the pride of ownership: having your own radio station, where you are the DJ in charge.

Special note:  It’s a noisy, Muzak-infested world, and kids have had to become passive listeners to protect themselves from the onslaught of noise that surrounds them much of the time. Encourage students to take charge of their own sound environment whenever they can. Remind them to listen actively when they turn on their Pandora station for music of their choice. And, very important, tell them to turn it off to enjoy periods of silence or when they are busy with other activities, because music should not be like wallpaper or background noise. Music is like a conversation with an invited guest. When Mozart talks, we should all listen (to paraphrase the old E. F. Hutton ad). We may think we are “multi-tasking” but that is another myth for another blog. . .

Tell me what your students think, and share some of their own “stations” so we can let others know about them on this blog.

Happy listening!