John Cage became famous for his unorthodox theories and very experimental compositions. He was an American composer born in Los Angeles on September 5, 1912. Neither of his parents went to college, and John himself dropped out after a mere two years in college. His father earned a living being an inventor. Cage credits his father, being an inventor, as very influential to the way in which he wrote music. John also considered himself as an innovator and discoverer in the field of music. John Cage took traditional classical music and turned it into a futuristic collection of sounds totally different from what everyone was used to. He has expanded the idea of what sounds constituted music, and was the influential impetus behind indeterminacy in music. He is credited with enhancing the thinking of many other modern composers, Philip Glass being one of them.By as early as 1937 Cage was introducing the use of intentional and unintentional noise and electrically produced sounds in music. He did this by using your everyday household items such as pots and pans even brake drums to produce sounds and turn them into music. He was the first composer to give noise equal status to musical tone. He is said to have created an early piece “Imaginary Landscapes No. 1” by using muted piano, cymbal, and frequency test recordings. As if this doesn’t sound weird enough the frequency test recordings were played on variable speed turntables. This was John Cage’s style. He later went on to use the sounds of percussion on household furniture, he used various items such as the human body, conch shells, and kitchen sounds like chopping vegetables. He was also known for using amplified sounds like a crumpling paper, even a chess game being played. He incorporated the sounds of toys and toy pianos into his works also.Cage, in 1938, once conquered the challenge of creating percussion instruments for a dance in a theatre that h...
