Composer- John Cage Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Composer- John Cage - Research Paper Example He dropped out from college in his second year and sailed to Europe where he wrote his first pieces of music, but not liking them, he left them behind on his return to America, after being in Europe for 18 months. Cage was tutored by Schoenberg for free on the condition he â€Å"devoted his life to music†, which Cage readily agreed, but after two years he stopped his lessons because of the fact that he had no feeling for harmony. After that, he began to experiment with percussion instruments and gradually made the rhythm the basis of his music instead of harmony, structuring pieces according to the duration of sections. He went to the Cornish School of Arts in Seattle, Washington in the late 1930’s where he found a job as an accompanist for dancers and was asked to write music to accompany a dance by Syvilla Fort called Bacchanale. He wanted to write a percussion piece but had to write for a piano because there was no pit at the performance venue for a percussion ensemb le.While working on the piece, Cage experimented by placing a metal plate on top of the strings of the instrument. He liked the produced sound and eventually he invented the prepared piano with screws, bolts, strips of rubber and other objects placed between the strings of the piano to change the instrument’s character. It may be that Cage was influenced by his old teacher Henry Cowell who also treated the piano in a non-standard way. For example, asking the performers to strum the strings with their fingers. Widely seen to be his greatest work for prepared piano are The Sonatas and Interludes of 1946-48. Pierre Boulez organized the European premiere of the work and the two composers struck up a correspondence. Unfortunately, this correspondence stopped with a disagreement over Cage’s use of chance in his music. While being at Cornish, Cage also founded a percussion orchestra for which he wrote his First Construction (In Metal) in 1939, a piece in which loud rhythmic m usic is created by metal percussion instruments, and the Imaginary Landscape No. 1, which is the first example of using record players as instruments. In later years, Cage wrote a number of other Imaginary Landscape pieces. In order to introduce an element of chance over which he would have no control, Cage began to use the I Ching in the composition of his music. In the Music of Changes for solo piano in 1951, he used it to determine which notes should be used and when they should be heard. He used chance in Imaginary Landscape No. 4 (1951) as well. This peace was written for twelve radio receivers. Each radio has two players- one that controls the frequency and the other that controls the volume. â€Å"Cage wrote very precise instructions in the score about how the performers should set their radios and change them over time, but he could not control the actual sound coming out of them, which was dependent on whatever radio shows were playing at that particular place and time of performance.†( http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Aleatoric_music) Cage’s friend and colleague from Black Mountain college had produced a series of white paintings while working at the college. These paintings, apparently blank canvases, changed according to varying light conditions in the rooms in which they were hung, the shadows of people in

American and British System For Regulating Occupational Health and Essay

American and British System For Regulating Occupational Health and Safety - Essay Example But there are times that these basic rights were deprived to them and the government cannot do anything but just simply hurdle the Constitution to anyone who questions them which at some time the Constitution played as a mere paper and those legislators who were to be the advocate of the law where in fact the first to bend the law. That is why the question whether there is enough law to guard the interest of the people should be answered as there is more than enough law, only that compliance is absurd. Many people relied that much on what is written such as an agreement or contract that usually preceded prior to the working periods. While it is true that some workers were aware of the circumstances and their current conditions, they are to some extent lack of the basic knowledge on their rights and privileges that were being draft by the government. Thus there are many workers being exploited especially on the rank and file positions even these days. During the past decades, several workers were regarded as underdog and are brutely exploited by their employers. They were made to suffer as if they were wholly owned by their employers. ... y emerged during the birth of capitalism, where supply and demand gradually increase and where formidable profit can be easily obtain since there is a minimal supervision of the government. This working class began to realize their collective entity. This is the time where their demands began to reap attention to the government. Collective efforts such as strike, collective bargaining agreement trade unions, lockout, and different methods become at first a threat to the capitalist system. (King, 2000). Behind those efforts is the strength to unify the collective entity that can threaten the system that is why many employers began to submit the demand of their workers. To counteract the situation, employers on the other hand assert their foremost right by enforcing their rules and regulations in the working environment. While dissension still is present, it is now the time for the government to do some actions, that is they are either bound to choose among the two parties of whom will they prioritize and given that the capitalists system ensure the financial growth of the nation it is not a doubt that the government will prioritize them, the financial grantees. The complexities of the situation and to add there is assurance that the collective agreement will lasts, several ideas and ideology sprouted out from those tiny seedlings of exploitation. They are on the extreme side creating their new class, the proletarians which figuratively mean the industrial working class selling their labors in payment for wages. They believe that their conditions were permanent and inescapable that as long as the capitalists system reigns, they cannot be emancipated. This system of thinking only lasts for a moment because it disregard the rights and privileges of the employers too which