Composer John Cage: an education suitable for an artist

John Cage
Originally uploaded by U.S.O. Project

By 1928 Cage was convinced that he wanted to be a writer. That year he graduated from Los Angeles High School as a valedictorian[15] and enrolled at Pomona College, Claremont, says Wikipedia. However, in 1930 he dropped out, believing that "college was of no use to a writer"[16] by an incident described in the 1991 autobiographical statement:

I was shocked at college to see one hundred of my classmates in the library all reading copies of the same book. Instead of doing as they did, I went into the stacks and read the first book written by an author whose name began with Z. I received the highest grade in the class. That convinced me that the institution was not being run correctly. I left.[12]

Cage persuaded his parents that a trip to Europe would be more beneficial to a future writer than college studies.[17]

He subsequently hitchhiked to Galveston and sailed to Le Havre, where he took a train to Paris.[18] Cage stayed in Europe for some 18 months, trying his hand at various forms of art. First he studied Gothic and Greek architecture, but decided he was not interested enough in architecture to dedicate his life to it.[16]

He then took up painting, poetry and music. It was in Europe that he first heard the music of contemporary composers (such as Igor Stravinsky and Paul Hindemith) and finally got to know the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, which he had not experienced before.

After several months in Paris, Cage's enthusiasm for America was revived after he read Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass – he wanted to return immediately, but his parents, with whom he regularly exchanged letters during the entire trip, persuaded him to stay in Europe for a little longer and explore the continent.[19]

Cage started travelling, visited various places in France, Germany and Spain, as well as Capri and, most importantly, Majorca, where he started composing.[20] His first compositions were created using dense mathematical formulae, but Cage was displeased with the results and left the finished pieces behind when he left.[21]

Cage's association with theatre also started in Europe: during a walk in Seville he witnessed, in his own words, "the multiplicity of simultaneous visual and audible events all going together in one's experience and producing enjoyment."[22]