Listening Through John Cage

I recently came across an excellent blog in which the writer, Zac, listened comprehensively to all of John Cage's recorded works: The John Cageblog

What a great idea! Being a huge fan of John Cage, I decided to have a go at it myself. Well, actually, I'm a little bit more lazy than Zac. I'm going to ignore all of Cage's pre-chance works. It's not that I dislike them - indeed, some of them are incredibly beautiful - but I don't find them nearly as interesting and I probably wouldn't have much to say about them. In this blog, then, I aim to write my thoughts on every composition by Cage from when he started using chance, i.e. his compositions from between 1951 to 1992.

I am not much of a musician; I can play the didgeridoo, but that's about it. My background is in philosophy. I'm doing this simply because I absolutely adore John Cage's music. As noted by Zac, there are many people who appreciate Cage's ideas, but don't bother actually listening to much of his music, seeing him as more a philosopher or theorist or whatever (and, of course, there are plenty of folks who don't even appreciate the ideas). I will certainly discuss Cage's ideas. But for me, his primary contribution is as a composer - I think that ultimately, the real point of his music is not the ideas but the sounds, and the sounds are often fascinating and beautiful.

I will say something about how I am going to approach this. I have made a list of all of John Cage's compositions from his first use of chance (in 1951's Concerto for Prepared Piano and Chamber Orchestra) onwards. I will randomize the list using random.org, and go through the pieces in whatever order results, so that I can explore Cage's music in an appropriately Cagean way. Obviously, I don't own every single piece by Cage (though I do own a lot of them). I will be buying more, but if I come to a piece that I don't have, I'll see if I can find it on youtube. If it's not on youtube, I'll just move it to the end of the list. A few of Cage's pieces have never even been recorded, so this blog will perhaps never be completed.

For anybody interested, I've drawn up a comprehensive list of Cage's works here:

John Cage: A Comprehensive List of Works

I think that's all we need by way of introduction. I hope you enjoy the blog!