Cage often complained that musicians can't properly hear an individual sound, they only hear its relation to other sounds around it. While I may not agree with this in scientific terms (sound is created by an infinite number of sin tones and its timbre, phase, etc. is determined by their relation to one another), I am forced to question its validity in our current musical world.
These days do we really hear the beauty of individual pieces of music, or do we just hear them in relation to other pieces of its pre-determined genre? Within the realm of popular music does the music even matter? Is music just given value based on what it is related to: sexual scandal, american idol, going green, or club-music?
Music has lost its power of embodied worth. In most instances of a popular song, its end cause or final cause (according to aristotle) is not beautiful noise with the accompanied subjective response, but an ideological hum-drum.
Now, Cage is a radical!
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