This week, we're going to look at an early proponent of percussion music, John Cage.

Cage embraced Varèse's "organized sound" notion and took it a step further. Not only were all sounds acceptable to Cage, all ways of organizing them were acceptable as well.

At a certain point in his career, inspired by the teachings of Zen Buddhism, Cage strove to create music following nature, "in her manner of operations." To this end, he gave up any ideas, expectations, or preferences in the process of composing in favor of chance procedures. He famously used the I Ching (Chinese Book of Oracles) and the process of flipping coins to decide what his music would sound like.

As for the percussion side of things, Cage was the first to organize a touring percussion ensemble, then called the Cage Percussion Players. The group consisted of amateurs: people who had backgrounds in dance, bookbinding, art, etc. Not one knew how to do a drum roll. Cage was scrappy, however, composing for the group and soliciting composers all over the Americas for pieces.