John Cage on the Piano

Let’s talk about John Cage.

Johnny was never an ordinary man. The son of an inventor, his father told him “If someone says you ‘can’t’, then that shows you what to do.” Those words must’ve had an impact on him because little Johnny Junior grew up to be one of America’s most infamous composer. He, like his father before him, was an inventor, always trying new things, new ideas. So, naturally, many of his compositions were Experimental.

He embraced ideas that many of his more conservative peers would shun. The most notable of these is the idea of silence. He was a champion of the idea of having performers put their instruments down and having the environment, or the human body. He shares that belief in his Doctrine, mentioning that, even in a supposedly-soundproof environment, one will “...discover that one bears two sounds of one’s own making (nerves systematic operation, blood’s circulation). the situation one is clearly in is not objective (sound-silence), but rather subjective (sounds only), those intended and those others (so-called silence) not intended.” This belief extended all the way back to at least his Senior Year of High School when, in a speech at the Hollywood Bowl, he said “By being hushed and silent, he said, 'we should have the opportunity to hear what other people think',...” This viewpoint would inevitably lead to his most (in)famous compositions: 4’33”, a virtual symphony for the environment.

But for this post, I wish to focus on the other technique Cage was most famous for: his works for prepared piano.

A Prepared Piano is essentially one whose sounds have been altered. This is done by having certain objects installed on, below or in between the strings of the piano.

One of the earliest uses of this was in Erik Satie’s opera Piège de Méduse, where sheets of paper were placed under piano strings in order to simulate a Money Puppet.

But by far, the Prepared Piano would transcend simple pieces of paper under John Cage. Up until 1938, all Cage wrote for were Percussion Ensembles. But when the venue that Bacchanale, the commission he was working on at the time, proved too small to house one, he realized that “... With just one musician, you can really do an unlimited number of things on the inside of the piano if you have at your disposal an exploded keyboard”.

Now the item de choix for the Prepared Piano is the bolt.

As you can see, different types of bolts can be used for whatever string suits you. And more different the bolt, the more different the sounds. This can clearly be shown in his Sonatas and Preludes.

Now to be fair, we’re only going to be looking at two of the Sonatas, the 2nd and 5th, for this post. However, both these pieces utilize the potentials of the Prepared Piano so well, that these two Sonatas by themselves should prove sufficient.

To the unsuspecting viewer, the 2nd Sonata sounds less like a Piano and more like a Javanese Gamelan band. And it’s no coincidence. Not only is the piano prepared in such a way that it’s almost virtually indistinguishable from a Gamelan group:

but Cage would know that because he tutored an Indian girl two years before and, in exchange, she taught him about Indian music and philosophy. Additionally, he furthered his studies by attending Daisetz Suzuki’s lectures about Zen Buddhism (he was the leading expert on the subject in the Western Hemisphere at the time) and reading up on Ananda Coomaraswamy, a leading historian and philosopher on Indian Art.

What is Zen? Zen is a form of Buddhism that revolve around a set of practices which revolve in turn around personal efforts that will cause one to obtain enlightenment. These ideas were apparently appealing to Cage, who said that the goal of music is “...to sober and quiet the mind, thus rendering it susceptible to divine influences”. And divine are these Sonatas.

In tradition, Gamelans (which, to be fair, were mostly Indonesian but they relate directly to Buddhism) were instruments used to summon Gods and other Dieties. In that case, the Sonatas seem to be doing their jobs. Even if one doesn’t recognize the spiritual connection, the rhythms and tonality has a definite SouthEastern Asian flavor to it. And these are pieces ahead of their times. The 5th Sonata, for instance, would Foreshadow the electronic work he would find his niche in during the 1960s.   

So even though his lectures on silence                 will always        be tanti       lizing, John Cage’s works on the        piano¶        will always shine through. His works are the       songs      sirens heed and for good                             reason. The way         he       manipu        lates       the strings to     create       sonor     sono   son   son     son so-

OH, GREAT!! NOW HE’S GOT ME DOING THE SILENCE THING!!!