Upon reading ”searching for Silence” an excerpt about John Cage and his strange “music”, I came to understand his expressions on a deeper level. Hearing their work for the first time, I felt like an audience member at the beginning of his career: trapped in a room with essentially what felt like a torture method, my mind has since been swayed. The idea of utilizing sound in a similar way that a watercolor or oil painter would use their media, Cage’s work embodies life as opposed to embodying a specific moment or thing. Seeing as though it was mentioned that Cage had performed at MOMA and some other larger artistic showcase events, his music was reaching some - later in the article it is learned that Cage drew a younger audience, those who were willing to listen and try to derive their own meanings. Unique as they were, Cage’s compositions can be closely related to that of Asian descent, focusing on eighth note spacings, sometimes modifying those to blend the piece, disallowing any attempt at guesswork as to what's next. Although difficult to listen to at times, finding that deeper understanding that sound production or musical expression can come in a variety or, in many ways that we may not even understand - like some more abstract works. Overall, the more I listen to the work of John Cage and those like him, the more I begin to understand and reveal the idea behind such a work (or not - it all depends).
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