John Cage was an Avant-Garde classical composer. This type of composer ignored the old masters and Schoenberg's twelve-tone theory, incorporating non-traditional structures, instruments and approaches into the classical tradition. Composer John Cage used chance operations to determine the structure of his compositions, while Harry Partch designed his own instruments. Many Avant-Garde composers included electronic instrumentation in their music. Cage’s music often is similar to hearing the soundtrack of a movie with no plot. This style of music is known as "musique concrete." This became Cage’s particular style of music. He would make music out of non-traditional instruments.
John Cage was born in Los Angeles in 1912. Cage briefly attended college and then traveled in Europe. Returning to the United States in 1931,
Cage wrote over 150 compositions and published several volumes of his collected writings, a majority of which can be regarded as musical compositions. He is today regarded as one of the central figures in the music history of our century. The extent of his influence and the far-reaching effect of his ideas is immeasurable. In Europe his work began to be recognized during the fifties, thereby strengthening his position in the USA considerably. Since the thirties Cage has been composing continually for all available media. Above all, his inclusion of chance operations for compositional decisions became famous. It was a procedure based on a totally new understanding of what music is, and what art is. Frequently Cage provided no more than a framework or situation, the content of which can always be filled by the musicians and which varies with every
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