It is easy to write off Cage as just being another pretentious artist in a lot of his work, which isn’t helped by his writing ‘History of Experimental Music in the United States’ which, without context, comes across as little more than him complaining about everyone else making music including other experimental musicians for not being experimental enough.

I came to understand his works would have been a lot more striking at the time. Today we easily have a hundred times the number of genres of music Cage had growing up, countless new types of music is popping up all of the time, especially with the internet, and I think it’s safe to presume much of that is thanks to him and his experimentation in music.

One has to transport themselves back to the time he was making his music, and you might begin to truly appreciate him, largely for the way he saw sound

Noises are as useful to new music as so-called musical tones, for the simple reason that they are sounds

The way Cage thought was revolutionary, not just his opinions on noises, but his belief in that with modern technology now more than ever we need not rely on traditional methods of measuring music.

Magnetic tape music makes it clear that we are in time itself, not in measures of two, three, or four or any other number

Cage then discusses how he doesn’t need sound to talk to him, and that’s something that I can appreciate. Most of the arts are thought of as being in time and space, and he claims that music is not a time art but a space art, it is about different sounds from various places.

There is an interesting interview on YouTube where Cage discusses silence and noise in general.

 “I don’t want a sound to be psychological”

In this video he quotes famous German philosopher Immanuel Kant, who said “there are two things that don’t have to mean anything, one is music and the other is laughter” he takes meaning nothing in this instance as something you can take deep pleasure in, it’s very reminiscent to how electronic music is enjoyed today, it is more often than not totally meaningless, there are no lyrics and often very little structure, it is all about how it makes you feel and think.

Although to me some of what Cage has made seems to me be more like he is saying something or making a point, rather than creating something to be enjoyed like traditional music, it had an enormous impact and gave way to a whole new generation of innovative musicians. Ultimately, I appreciate him for how he pioneered electronic music, and how he’s made me that bit more aware about the sounds around me.

sources:
en.wikipedia.org
youtube.com
zakros.com