Critical Analysis Of John Cage's Music And Improvisation

John Cage’s Music and Improvisation

Introduction

Many scholars believe that there are connections between Cage’s music and the practice of improvisation because of the sense of unpredictability, and freedom in his music, and also both of them are related to pre-compositional strategy and liberation of the composition and performance. Consequently, scholars might tend to consider that Cage had close connection with improvisation and had only a one single view of improvisation, actually his idea of improvisation changed over the course of his career.

Cage’s attitude towards improvisation

Cage played an important role of twentieth century music history, and he was the pioneer of indeterminacy music since he applied indeterminate and unpredictable elements of a musical process which are all the elements of improvisation. However, his attitude towards the practice of improvisation was changing throughout his lifetime as Sabine Feisst demonstrates in her article John Cage and Improvisation-An Unresolved

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