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John Cage - Inlets

 

Melanie Diehl (6887890)

Prof. Dr. Bernd Herzogenrath

Winter Semester 2022/2023

The Future of American Music

Listening Reports - 16.02.2023

John Cage - Inlets

“How can you even call that music?!” he looked at me all weirded out. We sat down discussing about the various tones. I tried to explain the melodies we ignore and that the sounds of everyday life include a certain type of poetry. While he tried to convince me that Mozart would turn around in his grave if he knew that they called this music. That is the effect Cage’s experiments with sounds and tone had on me, and a traumatizing one on my husband, I guess.

            When I heard Inlets, I thought the sounds I am hearing were like droplets of water dripping down at the front of a cave’s hole, echoing in the far you can hear sounds like those of an arriving cruise ship, with the horns buzzing. All my husband could hear was noise and Cage pointing the middle finger to Mozart and various other composers, but he does not get it. The point Cage was trying to make, as I understood it from listening to his sounds, is that music is in everyday life, we can try to focus on it, listen to it, and that sounds come from all things, in the nature and with the use of his interesting instruments, we can replicate such sounds, creating music.

            In a way, his vision has come to be true, the one from The Future of Music: Credo, but we’ll get to that later. Through the use of instruments like DJ’s use, through musical software we can create music from different sounds, incorporate it on the software and mix it as we please. Making music out of noise. Sure, there are opposers to it and there is a lot of ‘crap’ music out there, but ultimately, music has no boundaries. It just exists. Thanks to Cage, who inspired people to look at music beyond of how we have been taught to listen to it.

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