Scholarly discussion of the music of John Cage.

[Josh Ronsen <>]

From interview with multi-instrumentalist Hugh Glover in liner notes to 
Children of the Forest by Milford Graves, Arthur Doyle and Hugh Glover, 
talking about his musical experience as a child in New York City in the late 
1940s, early 1950s:

"So when I began to hear music on the radio, as I said, my mother's radio, on 
the headboard of the bed, and NBC [broadcasts of orchestra rehearsals] — 
Toscanini. I must say, although I was most moved by music of 
African-Americans, I could still get some skin crawling from listening to 
NBC, listening to orchestral music and having that sound in my head, to the 
extent that my own harmonic sense was cutting-edge. I wasn't satisfied with a 
whole lot of classical romantic stuff, because I could anticipate where it 
was going before it got there. I love the element of surprise in music. So 
when I heard even Webern, some of the more avant-garde, even John Cage, when 
I heard his sonatas for piano I said 'oh, how did he get into those rhythms?' 
You know? And that tickled my fancy, which is a thing for me — if it tickles 
my fancy, it's the right stuff."