John Cage, born on September 5, 1912 and died on August 12, 1992, was an American composer who invented numerous creative compositions and had unconventional ideas which sparked great influence in the mid-20th-century music style. Among his musical career, Cage composed numerous well-known and acclaimed pieces, with 4′33″ (Four Minutes and Thirty-three Seconds, 1952), being one of the most prominent compositions. This opus explores utter silence for a set period of time where performers refrain from playing their designated instruments.
In his early life, John Cage engaged in numerous piano lessons which sparked his future interest in the musical field. Later on, he continued to pursue his passion in formal and informal studies such as advanced music classes at Pomona College, lessons with American composer Adolph Weiss. And even cultural excursions throughout Europe. All the way from the 1930s to the 1940s, Cage remained significantly influenced by two powerful mentors, Henry Cowell and Arnold Schoenberg, both with disparate musical inclinations and styles. The latter marked John Cage in terms of the dominant use of diverse percussion instruments as well as the famous prepared piano. Just like Schoenberg, Cage’s earliest, music was based primarily on the organization of rhythmic structures, pitch, partly as a
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In fact, upon the piece’s release, listeners ridiculed the movement by referring to it as a “joke”. Only few with the ability to delve deeper into Cage’s perception were able to truly appreciate its meaning. It was only later on that many others finally began to understand and 4’33” had an untold influence of the future of music. Cage wrote "Until I die, there will be sounds, and they will continue after my death. One need not fear about the future of music. Any sounds may occur in any combination and in any
Courage is defined as “the ability to do something that frightens one.” This was displayed throughout the memoir The Cage by Ruth Minsky Sender in many places. During the holocaust, many people needed to exhibit courage in order to survive. There were many instances where characters stood up for what they believed in. The nazis struck terror in those who were not seen as equal to Germans and few people stood up to these guards in fear for their lives. Moishe and Catia were just two people who put Rivas lives before their own and stood up to the guards in order to save Riva’s life. Characters throughout the memoir demonstrate strength and courage in the face of fear in order to save lives of those they love.
I Know Why the Cage Bird Sings, a 1979 movie directed by Fielder Cook, is a world-renowned autobiography of Maya Angelou’s youth during the Great Depression.
John Williams had attended the University of California, but he had also studied in the major of jazz pianist at Juilliard for a short amount of time. He can
..., D. (1993). Music and the Mind. MENC, Retrieved August 25, 2003 from MENC, Academic Achievement and Music database.
The Lives of Others experimented with the use of sound as an element to convey narrative structure and did so brilliantly. The use of music is an accomplishment which celebrates the arts as an essential part of our human condition. If our right to express ourselves freely is imposed upon, we can no longer communicate our deepest thoughts and no longer discover that we are all united by the same qualities. Our need for love and companionship transcends our political aspirations or ideological shortcomings. We are human and we need other human in order to give our lives a deeper and richer meaning than just the solitary musings or an ideal world. This film took these ideas and expressed them with a piece of music which was able to break down a wall around a human’s heart and function as a symbol for the greater global instance of the Berlin Wall’s demise.
...died hands buffet and slap His head and a scorner spits in His Face. The slapping hands are frozen in mid-air and thus trigger associations with regard to noise. This association with noise is also shown in the scorner’s spit and how it suddenly stops before it reaches Christ’s halo: In order to perceive a sound in its reality, we require the space of silence, not of carnival. Glasmeier believes that this is precisely what John Cage does in 4’33’’. There is a suggestion of noise in Cage’s work just like in Angelico’s. The performer of 4’33’’ approaches the instrument three times, giving the instrument the possibility of noise without the reality of that noise: the viewer becomes the performer, imagining how that noise may be articulated. This is just like how a blank sheet of music still embodies music without ever being played; it triggers associations with sound.
Maya Angelou, the author to I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, writes about a girl who is confronted with sex, rape, and racism at an early stage in her life in detail in her novel. When she is three years old, her parents have a divorce and send her and her four-year-old brother Bailey from California to Arkansas to live with her grandmother in a town that is divided by color and full of racism. They are raised by her grandmother and then sent back to their carefree mother in the absence of a father figure. At age eight, she is raped by her mother’s boy friend while she is sleeping in her mother’s bed. The book also tells about her other sexual experiences during the early parts in her life. Those experiences lead to the birth of her first child.
Amy Beach was a very famous and influential composer and pianist from New Hampshire, United States. She fought long and hard to get to where she got in her lifetime. Back in the late 1800’s, it was hard for women to get noticed because they believe that their role in society was to stay at home and take care of the family. Amy Beach defeated all the odds of a female gender role in her lifetime. She became a role model for young girls wanting to become a composer or becoming anything they wanted to be, as long as they fought for it. She has made an enormous impact on music in America. The following paper will discuss Beach’s life, her struggles, her musical training, how her music was shaped by the society she lived in and famous compositions
My composer, Steve Reich, has written and continues to write contemporary, minimalist, vocal, and tape pieces. His pieces these pieces have been influenced not only by what he has encountered, but the music he had composed has influenced many others composer similar to him (Service). In this paper I will give a short biography of Reich that includes the many different places that he studied, what influenced his not so ordinary music styles, and what made him who he is today. I will also talk about his composition styles, which are different from many others, what influenced them, and what types of music her produced. Lastly, I will give my evaluation of one of his several world-renowned compositions.
Reich, Steve. Writings about Music. Halifax: Nova Scotia Coll.of Art & Design P., 1974. Print.
With the encouragement of John Cage, a composer, Cunningham left Martha Graham?s Dance Company in 1945 to pursue a fulltime partnership with Cage. The two men would go on to have a very storied career. On the night of April 6, 1944, at the Humphrey Weidman Studio, Cunningham and Cage performed their first solo recital. In attendance that night was acclaimed dance critic, Edwin Denby. ?When he was actively reviewing, Edwin Denby was this country?s most respected critic of the dance?(Klosty 215). Cunningham?s first performance captured Denby from the very beginning with Cunningham?s amazing steps, runs, and knee bends and he described them as ?brilliant in lightness and speed.? Denby was also impressed by Cunningham?s gifts as a lyric dancer. Denby?s first review of Cunningham helped launch his career forward. Denby ended his review of Cunningham?s first solo performance by saying ?I have never seen a first solo recital that combined such taste, such technical finish, such originality of dance material, and so sure a manner of presentation.?
Though Jelly Roll Morton began his career without formal training, he grew to live an influential life. His piano style, musical notations on paper, and creative compositions thrived in the 1910s and the 1920s and even weaved its way into the later eras as musicians used Morton’s music as the foundation for their own. Even past his death, Jelly Roll Morton remains a legendary figure. His works are meticulously preserved and displayed in the prestigious Smithsonian Museum and universities around the world continue his legacy by teaching students about Jelly Roll Morton and his influential career.
Langston Hughes and Kate Chopin use nature in several dimensions to demonstrate the powerful struggles and burdens of human life. Throughout Kate Chopin's The Awakening and several of Langston Hughes' poems, the sweeping imagery of the beauty and power of nature demonstrates the struggles the characters confront, and their eventual freedom from those struggles. Nature and freedom coexist, and the characters eventually learn to find freedom from the confines of society, oneself, and finally freedom within one's soul. The use of nature for this purpose brings the characters and speakers in Chopin's and Hughes' works to life, and the reader feels the life and freedom of those characters.
Nature’s beauty can be seen all around us and has been and will always be there for us to appreciate; yet the way we experience and interpret nature is ever changing. The Romantic Era was a literary movement that gave a new attitude towards nature that was unique and spiritual. The Romantic movement, beginning around 1798, and carrying on well into the mid 1800s, expanded into almost every corner of Europe, into the United States, and Latin America. The ideology of the romantic era, of being completely humanistic, was the opposite of the new ideas of logic and reason of the Enlightenment.
Daverio, J. J. (1986). "Total Work of Art" or "Nameless Deeds of Music" Some Thoughts on