Alex Ross explains the importance of John Cage’s unique musical style and his influence on the industry as a whole. He mentions his childhood and early life and how it was key in the adaptation of Cage’s work and potentially even a revolt against a society he felt as though he did not fit into. I found it interesting when Ross mentioned his high school yearbook which noted him for, “Being radical.” (Ross) Further, he was unfortunately on the receiving end of a lot of backlash as a young child and seemed to be sort of the black sheep growing up. To me, this explains why Cage had been born creative and what led him to essentially always longing for something more. He was unsatisfied with the way music and art had currently been portrayed and appreciated in his time and desired to challenge society's ideologies surrounding the concept. One could assume this was similar to how he was unsatisfied with the way he had been written off as a young child and that he merely desired a way to be seen. To stand out amongst the rest, Cage expressed himself through art and architecture but eventually decided to advance his expression solely via music. As John states, “Anything can be music,” and essentially all sounds are music. John Cage was most famous for his 4 '33 piece which consists of a musician sitting in “silence” for exactly four minutes and 33 seconds. The point of Cage’s piece is to allow audience members to embrace the other noises and sounds around them and appreciate it as music. In my opinion, Cage’s work not only expanded people’s perceptions and interpretations of music up until this time but also created a unity between art and music grouping them closer together as one.
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