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Matingas

Matingas is a Reader contributor. See staff page for published articles.

Enlightenment Cage

If you listened to noise and more abstract stuff, I think you noticed why he prefers traffic and natural noises than compositions. Music is an arrangement of noises and sounds, once you think you listen to it all, street noises get a different and unpredictable beat that turns out to be more pleasing than the arranged thoughts. Sit on the passenger side in a car while driving in a highway with no music, what do you hear? A repetitive beat, but also not always in time, listen to how the concrete or pavement changes and creates rhythm. A random horn plays, screeching tires, everything is music and is unpredictable. The sense of harmony is also there. Music is everywhere. John Cage might not have been the normal composer in a sense Westernized music, but he did much more than what Gershwin did. Gershwin was great as a composer who combined ideas, the classical sound with the evolution of jazz and it turned out to be excellent and one of the founders of American music. But comparing the two seems sort of silly, much more declaring one the winner. I agree that Gershwin's music is much more pleasing and enjoyable, but Cage's genius inspired a complete different brand of musicians and is one of the fathers of minimalism. Cage takes the win in my view, but that's what music is, opinions. Without Cage I'm afraid there wouldn't be any Brouwer and Leo Brouwer takes the cake as the best composer this century has seen (but then again, music is about opinion).
— November 4, 2013 3:36 p.m.

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