John Cage

John Cage, a highly avant-garde musical innovator and pioneered the concepts of music's omnipresence as well as omni-perceptibility. In other words, he believed music was around at all times, in all places, and in all things. He enjoyed the music he found in construction, traffic, perhaps wind blowing through grass, and, when all other sound was muted in Harvard's anechoic chamber, even what he thought to be his blood flow and nervous system. His major contributions to music included the prepared piano, the roots of which lie in his unique style of relocating the rhythm of a composition in the foreground, rather than the background. in the strings of which he placed screws that would serve as a percussive distortion to the piano's existing sound; thus, he transformed the piano into its own orchestra. Today, Cage is referenced mainly in alternative contemporary culture. Artists much on the edges of mainstream music such as Aphex Twin, Sonic Youth, and Frank Zappa have acknowledged his innovations in their own productions.