LO – 06 Sara Frankel

Caption: This performance of Cage’s piece “Electronic Music for Piano” will be like no other performance of this piece.

John Cage in the music industry today is known for his expansion on the definition of what music is. His most infamous work, 4’33, requires the performer to sit with their instrument in “complete silence” for four minutes and thirty three seconds for all three movements. The idea of this piece though is to bring attention to the music around you, the random sneezes, the sound of electricity or just the thoughts and breathing of the audience member. Essentially, Cage brings attention to the coherency of randomness. In his piece “Electronic Music for Piano”, the score is just a piece of letterhead paper with very few instruction “for the use of parts from Music for Piano 4-84, reliant upon electronic equipment (microphones, amplifiers, and oscilloscope) and a constellation from an astronomical chart” (http://johncage.org/pp/John-Cage-Work-Detail.cfm?work_ID=59). John Cage’s work is inspiring to me as, if you let it, music and stories are told all around you all the time. Whether it is the buzz of the electricity or the sound of birds chirping outside, every random aspect of life contributes to the musicality of life. As seen in “Electronic Music for Piano”, there is story and music within random sounds of a piano.