John Cage
Collector of mushrooms, creator of chance music and lover to a Dadaist tap dancer. John Cage became somewhat of an inspiration after studying experimental sound during my second year of study at University. Although Cage was an acclaimed composer of many marvellous classical avant-guarde ensembles, his ability to question the likes of musical composition, live audience participation and even essay writing have always been rather controversial. He once tried to prove that when researching for a thesis, one could take any book, leaflet or chunk of text and somehow make it relevant to the selected subject matter. Cage demonstrated his hypothesis, unknown to his teacher, by taking the first book he could find in the library whose authors surname started with the letter ‘X’. Cage then wrote about how this book was relevant to his paper, even though the subject matter was of course completely different, and received a grade ‘A’ for his efforts. Quirky tales such as this are easily come by in Cage’s biography, as are his ideas and philosophies on experimental, coincidental and classical music, which have since opened gateways, not only in music, but also in the inspiration and perception of conceptual modern art.
