Author
John Cage (see author description in previous post)
About the Piece
- Genre is general instrumental
- indeterminacy plays large role in piece
- background noise "is" the music
- perhaps the most controversial piece of all time
- three movements
- Wikipedia Article
- YouTube Video
Purpose
- question the meaning of music and the distinction between music and noise
Reflections
I still don't know what I think about this piece. I could argue either way as to whether it is music, but I'm not really sure myself. It is certainly something that can never be imitated, and raises the interesting question that transends music: What is nothing? That is a far more loaded question even than "what is music?"