From an eight-part series about my key creative influences between the ages of 14 through 29, arguably the years when the foundation of one’s artistic point of view is established.
I knew John Cage’s work in music composition and treated pianos mostly by reputation, although fortunately I did hear them performed, eventually.
My initial introduction to his world view was through his writing, in the books Silence and A Year From Monday (“I have nothing to say and I am saying it”).
I also own a first edition of Notations, his collection of alternative musical scores by himself and others, which has been out of print for a long time.
Alternative musical notation has historically been as important to me as an aesthetic practice as much as alternative cartography has been.
He started as a writer. Then he dabbled in painting and in music.
He chose music, he said, because “The people who heard my music had better things to say about it than the people who looked at my paintings had to say about my paintings.”
People are often confused about what he was up to. His famous performance 4’33” (in which the performer sits at a piano for that length of time and does nothing), for example, was not a conceptual gimmick, it was to create a moment for everyone to actually listen to the world around them.
He actively used chance operations as a composition tool.
I once spoke with him at a Merce Cunningham concert outside of Philadelphia. We talked for a few minutes about his work, and also about my own. Amazingly everyone around us left us alone for the duration. It was a nice moment.
