Of Mice and Music

At Truman, there was an ongoing debate over whether or not John Cage was a composer. We beat this issue to death and never quite came to a conclusion (partly because, I think, Dr. Gooch wouldn’t allow a conclusion to be made in either direction). Brad, I’m talking about even way before you graced us with your presence. This was ongoing, long before and after my time there.

After five years of this, I wasn’t enthusiastic about moving on, only to find BG acting like nobody’s ever asked the hard questions before. What is music? What is a composer? What is “good” music? It was presumptuous on behalf of the BG faculty to think they invented existentialism.

Anyway, I was wondering… if John Cage’s music is music—that is, if anything can be considered music, then… are we all really mushrooms?

I mean, you know the guy is self-proclaimed to be more of a mushroom collector than a composer. What makes a mushroom a mushroom? What makes it a “good” mushroom? What exactly is the role of the mushroom collector? What defines a mushroom collector? How many mushrooms does it take to screw in a light bulb? What’s the sound of one mushroom clapping? Every time a mushroom rings, does an angel get its wings? How many mushrooms could a dustbroom groom if a dustbroom could groom shrooms?

If a mushroom falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it, does it count as a piece of music?