Reprinted from the July 1966 issue of Pomona Today.

Our Distinguished Dropout:
John Cage

The interruptions in caps are from John Cage's own writings and recorded interviews. They were originally published in the C. F. Peters Corporation catalogue of his works, Copyright 1962 by Henmar Press Inc.; in the Tulane Drama Review, x, 2, Copyright 1965, Tulane Drama Review; in the pamphlet from the record album of the 25-year retrospective concert of the music of John Cage (Town Hall, May 1958), Copyright 1959 by George Avakian; and in the collection of his essays and lectures published by the Wesleyan University Press, Silence, Copyright 1939, 1944, 1949, 1952, 1955, 1957, 1958, 1959, 1961 by John Cage. They are, of course, quoted out of context, and it is no excuse for me that he should have done something of the sort in his article about Erik Satie. I simply put them in because it turned out to be the only way I could write this article. --Richard Barnes

By now John Cage is notorious, or famous. He's the composer who expects an audience to listen to a Waring Blender in operation and then to the sounds produced in his own esophagus (picked up by contact microphones and enormously amplified) as he drinks the glass of vegetable juice he has just made in the Waring Blender. They say he's the one American who has had much influence on the new music composed in Europe since the war.

WHEN A FLY BUZZES PAST ME NOW I HAVE, FROM AN ARTISTIC POINT OF VIEW, A FRIGHTFUL PROBLEM. BUT IT'S QUITE REASONABLE TO IMAGINE THAT WE WILL HAVE A LOUDSPEAKER THAT WILL BE ABLE TO FLY THROUGH SPACE

His pieces have such an air of novelty that they often sound like mere stunts. Take the piano accompaniment to "The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs" (1942) in which the piano is completely closed; the "Pianist" is told where to strike the wooden structure of the piano, how loudly, whether with finger or knuckle, and with which hand. A quite conventional percussion score, in fact. Why use a piano?

WE GOT TO TALKING ABOUT COOMARASWAMY'S STATEMENT THAT THE TRADITIONAL FUNCTION OF THE ARTIST IS TO IMITATE NATURE IN HER MANNER OF OPERATION. THIS LED ME TO THE OPINION THAT ART CHANGES BECAUSE SCIENCE CHANGES--THAT IS, CHANGES IN SCIENCE GIVE ARTISTS DIFFERENT UNDERSTANDINGS OF HOW NATURE WORKS

Or take the notorious or famous "silent piece," 4' 33" (1952) (tacet, any instrument or combination of instruments), "a piece in three movements during which no sounds are intentionally produced," Peters catalog number 6777, price half a dollar. John Cage has often explained that there is always something to hear, even in an anechoic chamber; so long as you are alive and if you have ears you can hear it.

THE SAND IN WHICH THE STONES IN A JAPANESE GARDEN LIE IS ALSO SOMETHING

A piece in which no sounds are intentionally produced could hardly be less "expressive," in the ordinary sense. However, it has a point which is clear enough if you yourself have the experience. If you don't, it isn't. The same is true of any other music, or, for that matter, of any speech or poetry or writing. One thing about John Cage's development is that you have less and less chance to fall back on hearing what you are supposed to hear or what somebody else hears or says he hears. No wonder so many music critics and musicians feel underemployed when asked to deal with his recent works--though in their own way these works are always quite exacting.

I HAVE THEREFORE MADE A LECTURE IN THE COURSE OF WHICH, BY VARIOUS MEANS, MEANING IS NOT EASY TO COME BY EVEN THOUGH LUCIDITY HAS BEEN MY CONSTANT WILL-OF-THE-WISP

I might as well try to explain what I think about the piano in "The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs." Doubtless John Cage would agree that it's theatre. Since his earliest work he has been moving constantly towards the theatre, first because of opportunity, when he found that dance groups wanted his music while orchestras and even string quartets didn't, and later because he came to think it important that we have eyes as well as ears. By now it seems clear that concerts always have been theatre, in a sense, if we could only have used our eyes properly, and that the theatricality of certain conductors and soloists offended us not because it was theatrical but because the theatricality was too gross and was directed toward cheap effects.

IF I LIKED MUZAK, WHICH I ALSO DON'T LIKE, THE WORLD WOULD BE MORE OPEN TO ME. I INTEND TO WORK ON IT

I doubt that John Cage would agree now, though he might have when he wrote the piece in 1942, that there is another reason why the percussive sounds are better produced by striking a piano. That is that whether we like it or not, we know it is a piano. In somewhat the same way I still think it important that the silent piece should have been written by John Cage who had studied with Henry Cowell and Arnold Schoenberg and had written, say, the twenty "Sonatas and Interludes"; whether we like it or not, we know it's by John Cage.

I USE, FREQUENTLY, VERY LOUD SOUNDS NOW ... WE DO GIVE AND RECEIVE PAIN AND WE MIGHT AS WELL RECOGNIZE THE FACT

All it is is hearing, and you do have to hear for yourself, but you ordinarily hear differently according to who it is you're listening with. Go to the same movie twice, once with your best friend and once with your grandmother. The same is true of other music which is one reason we still have courses in music appreciation.

THIS PLAY, HOWEVER, IS AN AFFIRMATION OF LIFE, NOT AN ATTEMPT TO BRING ORDER OUT OF CHAOS NOR TO SUGGEST IMPROVEMENTS ON CREATION, BUT SIMPLY A WAY OF WAKING UP TO THE VERY LIFE WE'RE LIVING WHICH IS SO EXCELLENT ONCE ONE GETS ONE'S MIND AND ONE'S DESIRES OUT OF ITS WAY AND LETS IT ACT OF ITS OWN ACCORD

If eventually you come to realize what it means in the Vedas (and in some quite recent philosophers) about individual awarenesses being aspects of a single awareness, then presumably it wonÕt matter whether it's by John Cage or not. The same is true of other music, which is one reason we still have John Cage.

THE WHOLE DESIRE FOR DEFINITIONS HAS TO DO WITH THE RENAISSANCE IN WHICH WE DEMANDED CLARITY AND GOT IT. NOW WE ARE NOT IN SUCH A PERIOD AND SUCH DEFINITIONS ARE NO LONGER OF USE TO US

"Between Chuang Choi and a butterfly there must be some distinction! This is called the Transformation of Things."

SURELY THINGS HAPPENING AT DIFFERENT TIMES ARE ALSO RELATED

I see in his POMONA COLLEGE PERSONNEL BLANK that John Cage's Occupational Outlook as he entered his freshman year was the Ministry and the next year Writing. You might say he did become some kind of preacher and writer after all. However, I see in his transcript that all he got was a B in his course in Religious Orientation the second semester of his last and sophomore year. Freshman Recreational Interests swimming, tennis, riding, Sophomore sleeping and talking, stealing.

FACTS ABOUT EDGARD VARESE'S LIFE AND WORK ARE DIFFICULT TO OBTAIN. HE CONSIDERS INTEREST IN THEM TO BE A FORM OF NECROPHILIA; HE PREFERS TO LEAVE NO TRACES

Church: Membership M. E., Preference M. E., Father's Occupation Electrical engineer and Inventor, Mother's Occupation Interested in Club work. Summer Experience (1928) Camping Trip during July; worked at beach during Aug. Summer Experience (1929) I merely proved that I possess neither character, will power, nor back bone. This in a fairly sloppy-looking but quite legible hand that reminds me of his literary style which looks (as you see) so artless. The Registrar has added in red ink his scores on various tests, his second prize in the Jennings English Contest, and June 1930. Does not plan to return. Going to travel in Europe.

WHEN I FIRST WENT TO PARIS, I DID SO INSTEAD OF RETURNING TO POMONA COLLEGE FOR MY JUNIOR YEAR. AS I LOOKED AROUND, IT WAS GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE THAT IMPRESSED ME MOST. AND OF THAT ARCHITECTURE I PREFERRED THE FLAMBOYANT STYLE OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. IN THIS STYLE MY INTEREST WAS ATTRACTED BY BALUSTRADES. THESE I STUDIED FOR SIX WEEKS IN THE BIBLIOTHEQUE MAZARIN, GETTING TO THE LIBRARY WHEN THE DOORS WERE OPENED AND NOT LEAVING UNTIL THEY WERE CLOSED. PROFESSOR PIOJAN, WHOM I HAD KNOWN AT POMONA, ARRIVED IN PARIS AND ASKED ME WHAT I WAS DOING. (WE WERE STANDING IN ONE OF THE RAILWAY STATIONS THERE.) I TOLD HIM. HE GAVE ME LITERALLY A SWIFT KICK IN THE PANTS AND THEN SAID, "GO TOMORROW TO GOLDFINGER. I'LL ARRANGE FOR YOU TO WORK WITH HIM. HE'S A MODERN ARCHITECT." AFTER A MONTH OF WORKING WITH GOLDFINGER, MEASURING THE DIMENSIONS OF ROOMS WHICH HE WAS TO MODERNIZE, ANSWERING THE TELEPHONE, AND DRAWING GREEK COLUMNS, I OVERHEARD GOLDFINGER SAYING, "TO BE AN ARCHITECT, ONE MUST DEVOTE ONE'S LIFE SOLELY TO ARCHITECTURE." I THEN LEFT HIM, FOR, AS I EXPLAINED, THERE WERE OTHER THINGS THAT INTERESTED ME, MUSIC AND PAINTING FOR INSTANCE.

FIVE YEARS LATER, WHEN SCHOENBERG ASKED ME WHETHER I WOULD DEVOTE MY LIFE TO MUSIC, I SAID, "OF COURSE." AFTER I HAD BEEN STUDYING MUSIC WITH HIM FOR TWO YEARS, SCHOENBERG SAID, "IN ORDER TO WRITE MUSIC, YOU MUST HAVE A FEELING FOR HARMONY." I EXPLAINED TO HIM THAT I HAD NO FEELING FOR HARMONY. HE THEN SAID THAT I WOULD ALWAYS ENCOUNTER AN OBSTACLE, THAT IT WOULD BE AS THOUGH I CAME TO A WALL THROUGH WHICH I COULD NOT PASS. I SAID, "IN THAT CASE I WILL DEVOTE MY LIFE TO BEATING MY HEAD AGAINST THAT WALL"

It is interesting that John Cage's father was an electrical engineer and inventor. After he came back from Europe John Cage worked for his father for a while checking out patents. I wonder if Schoenberg knew that when he said, "He's not a composer, he's an inventor--of genius."

IN THIS LATTER CASE, THE COMPOSER RESEMBLES THE MAKER OF A CAMERA WHO ALLOWS SOMEONE ELSE TO TAKE THE PICTURE

But Herbert Bruen, whose ideas about composition could hardly be farther from CageÕs than they are, said, "With what he says and what be does, either he's a composer or he's an idiot. And--and--heÕs a composer." Pause. "His great big goofy smile." This after a lecture in Bridges Hall where Herbert Bruen described his own way of calculating and achieving precise, verifiable musical effects.

ONE CHRISTMAS DAY, MOTHER SAID, "I'VE LISTENED TO YOUR RECORD SEVERAL TIMES. AFTER HEARING ALL THOSE STORIES ABOUT,YOUR CHILDHOOD, I KEEP ASKING MYSELF, 'WHERE WAS IT THAT I FAILED?'"

That same year (1963 I think) John Cage and David Tudor gave a lecture-concert in Bridges Hall. The lecture was "Where Are We Going? And What Are We Doing?" which you can read in Silence. He reads or is silent into a microphone while his own voice reads or is silent from each of three tape recorders. Though he uses a stopwatch and a time score to make every performance pretty nearly identical to every other, no two people hear the same thing because you can't follow four voices at once and have to just listen to what interests you. As with the electronic pieces "Fontana Mix" and "Williams Mix" (when played with all four or eight separate tracks), the sounds themselves are fairly rigidly determined but indeterminacy enters into the actual perception. No doubt it does into the perception of any large orchestral or choral piece but it is not made so welcome.

HENRY COWELL REMARKED AT THE NEW SCHOOL BEFORE A CONCERT OF WORKS BY CHRISTIAN WOLFF, EARLE BROWN, MORTON FELDMAN, AND MYSELF, THAT HERE WERE FOUR COMPOSERS WHO WERE GETTING RID OF GLUE. THAT IS: WHERE PEOPLE HAD FELT THE NECESSITY TO STICK SOUNDS TOGETHER TO MAKE A CONTINUITY, WE FOUR FELT THE OPPOSITE NECESSITY TO GET RID OF THE GLUE SO THAT SOUNDS WOULD BE THEMSELVES

Afterwards we all went over to Wig Lounge for an informal discussion and a snack of mushrooms. (Along with his other interests, John Cage is a mycologist.) The mushrooms we served were canned. He said that if the artist is supposed to seek beauty he will be more useful if he seeks it in what has seemed ugly.

LET US ADMIT, ONCE AND FOR ALL, THAT THE LINES WE DRAW ARE NOT STRAIGHT

Earlier in the afternoon, while they were hooking up the electrical gear for the piano, somebody left a microphone on so that when a certain connection was made there was a blast of feedback that was, to me, just past the threshold of pain. John Cage and David Tudor clearly thought it was beautiful, a delightful surprise. Of course they quickly turned off the microphone.

CURIOUSLY ENOUGH, THE TWELVE-TONE SYSTEM HAS NO ZERO IN IT

Richard Barnes, professor of English at Pomona College from 1961 to 1998, passed away in 2000.