John Cage: Changing The Definition of Music Since The 1950's

I researched John Cage, the influential American composer, music theorist, artist, and writer, for my Digital Processes report in relation to Marshall McLuhan.

McLuhan mentions Cage in his book, The Medium Is The Massage, because McLuhan addresses the idea of sound being all encompassing  and the fact that human beings are always enveloped sound. It was this exact concept that Cage introduced. John Cage set out to reform music in the early 1950's through his view that we should allow our ears to be exposed by all sorts of sound and we should abandon traditional concepts of music.
Here is a video of John Cage explaining his understanding of sound (or lack thereof) as music, and his passion for that sound.

"John Cage about silence" John Cage's influence was extremely far-reaching in the music world. But by starting a revolution through proposing that composers could abandon the musical language that had evolved over the last seven centuries, he opened the door to Minimalism, performance art and virtually every other branch of the musical avant-garde.