Connections: John Cage

                iMitations

            invErsions

                    reTrograde forms

             motives tHat are varied

          Or

not varieD

        once Music

            bEgins

                iT remains

                        He said the same

            even variatiOn is repetition

               some things changeD others not (schoenberg)

– John Cage

X:  writings '79–'82, 126

Schoenberg was a magnificent teacher, who always gave the impression that he was putting us in touch with musical principles.  I studied counterpoint at his home and attended all his classes at USC and later at UCLA when he moved there.  I also took his course in harmony, for which I had no gift.  Several times I tried to explain to Schoenberg that I had no feeling for harmony.  He told me that without a feeling for harmony I would always encounter an obstacle, a wall through which I wouldn't be able to pass.  My reply was that in that case I would devote my life to beating my head against that wall – and maybe that is what I've been doing ever since.

 – John Cage to Jeff Goldberg

"John Cage Interviewed" (May 1976)

reprinted in Conversing with Cage, ed. Richard Kostelanetz