Editing John Cage (section)

===1931–1936: Apprenticeship===
Cage returned to the United States in 1931.<ref name="Perloff, Junkerman, p. 81"/> He went to [[Santa Monica, California]], where he made a living partly by giving small, private lectures on contemporary art. He got to know various important figures of the Southern California art world, including arts patron [[Galka Scheyer]]<ref name="Kostelanetz, p. 4"/> and his later composition teacher [[Richard Buhlig]].<ref name="Pritchett, Grove">{{harvnb|Pritchett|Kuhn|Garrett|2012}}</ref> By 1933, Cage had decided to concentrate on music rather than painting. "The people who heard my music had better things to say about it than the people who looked at my paintings had to say about my paintings", Cage later explained.<ref name="Kostelanetz, p. 4"/> In 1933 he sent some of his compositions to Henry Cowell; the reply was a "rather vague letter",<ref>Cage quoted in {{harvnb|Nicholls|2002|loc=24}}.</ref> in which Cowell suggested that Cage study with [[Arnold Schoenberg]]—Cage's musical ideas at the time included composition based on a 25-[[tone row]], somewhat similar to Schoenberg's [[twelve-tone technique]].{{sfn|Kostelanetz|2003|loc=61}} Cowell also advised that, before approaching Schoenberg, Cage should take some preliminary lessons, and recommended [[Adolph Weiss]], a former Schoenberg pupil.{{sfn|Nicholls|2002|loc=24}} Weiss had been asked by Schoenberg to be his assistant and to train students who might not be ready for Schoenberg's teaching.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Hicks |first=Michael |year=1990 |title=John Cage's Studies with Schoenberg |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3051946 |journal=American Music |volume=8 |issue=2 |page=127 |doi=10.2307/3051946 |jstor=3051946 |issn=0734-4392}}</ref>

Following Cowell's advice, Cage travelled to New York City in 1933 and started studying with Weiss as well as taking lessons from Cowell himself at [[The New School]].<ref name="Pritchett, Grove"/> He supported himself financially by taking up a job washing walls at a [[YWCA|YWCA (World Young Women's Christian Association)]] in [[Brooklyn]].<ref name="Kostelanetz, p. 7">{{harvnb|Kostelanetz|2003|loc=7}}</ref> Cage's routine during that period was apparently very tiring, with just four hours of sleep on most nights, and four hours of composition every day starting at 4&nbsp;am.<ref name="Kostelanetz, p. 7"/><ref name="Pritchett, p. 9">{{harvnb|Pritchett|1993|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=riHo22Hi8QAC&pg=PA9 9]}}</ref> Several months later, still in 1933, Cage became sufficiently good at composition to approach Schoenberg.{{efn|1=Different sources give different details of their first meeting. {{harvnb|Pritchett|Kuhn|Garrett|2012}}, in Grove, imply that Cage met Schoenberg in New York City: "Cage followed Schoenberg to Los Angeles in 1934". In a 1976 interview quoted in {{harvnb|Kostelanetz|2003|loc=5}}, Cage mentions that he "went to see him [Schoenberg] in Los Angeles."}} He could not afford Schoenberg's price, and when he mentioned it, the older composer asked whether Cage would devote his life to music. After Cage replied that he would, Schoenberg offered to tutor him free of charge.<ref>This conversation was recounted many times by Cage himself: see ''[[Silence: Lectures and Writings|Silence]]'', p.&nbsp;261; ''[[A Year from Monday]]'', p.&nbsp;44; interviews quoted in {{harvnb|Kostelanetz|2003|loc=5, 105; etc.}}.</ref>

Cage studied with Schoenberg in California: first at [[University of Southern California]] and then at [[University of California, Los Angeles]], as well as privately.<ref name="Pritchett, Grove"/> The older composer became one of the biggest influences on Cage, who "literally worshipped him",<ref name="Kostelanetz, p. 6">{{harvnb|Kostelanetz|2003|loc=6}}</ref> particularly as an example of how to live one's life being a composer.<ref name="Pritchett, p. 9"/> The vow Cage gave, to dedicate his life to music, was apparently still important some 40 years later, when Cage "had no need for it [i.e. writing music]", he continued composing partly because of the promise he gave.<ref>Cage interview quoted in {{harvnb|Kostelanetz|2003|loc=105}}.</ref> Schoenberg's methods and their influence on Cage are well documented by Cage himself in various lectures and writings. Particularly well-known is the conversation mentioned in the 1958 lecture ''Indeterminacy'':

{{blockquote|After I had been studying with him for two years, Schoenberg said, "In order to write music, you must have a feeling for harmony." I explained to him that I had no feeling for harmony. He then said that I would always encounter an obstacle, that it would be as though I came to a wall through which I could not pass. I said, "In that case I will devote my life to beating my head against that wall."{{sfn|Cage|1973|loc=260}}}}

Cage studied with Schoenberg for two years, but although he admired his teacher, he decided to leave after Schoenberg told the assembled students that he was trying to make it impossible for them to write music. Much later, Cage recounted the incident: "... When he said that, I revolted, not against him, but against what he had said. I determined then and there, more than ever before, to write music."<ref name="Kostelanetz, p. 6"/> Although Schoenberg was not impressed with Cage's compositional abilities during these two years, in a later interview, where he initially said that none of his American pupils were interesting, he further stated in reference to Cage: "There was one ... of course he's not a composer, but he's an inventor—of genius."<ref name="Kostelanetz, p. 6"/> Cage would later adopt the "inventor" moniker and deny that he was in fact a composer.<ref name=Broyles>Broyles M. (2004).''Mavericks and Other Traditions in American Music'', Yale University Press, New Haven & London, (p. 177).</ref>

At some point in 1934–35, during his studies with Schoenberg, Cage was working at his mother's arts and crafts shop, where he met artist [[Xenia Andreyevna Kashevaroff]]. She was an [[Alaska]]n-born daughter of a Russian priest; her work encompassed fine [[bookbinding]], sculpture and [[collage]]. Although Cage was involved in relationships with Don Sample and with architect [[Rudolph Schindler (architect)|Rudolph Schindler]]'s wife [[Pauline Gibling Schindler|Pauline]],<ref name=LAT01/> when he met Xenia, he fell in love immediately. Cage and Kashevaroff were married in the desert at [[Yuma, Arizona]], on June 7, 1935.<ref>For details on Cage's first meeting with Xenia, see {{harvnb|Kostelanetz|2003|loc=7–8}}; for details on Cage's homosexual relationship with Don Sample, an American he met in Europe, as well as details on the Cage-Kashevaroff marriage, see {{harvnb|Perloff|Junkerman|1994|loc=81, 86}}.</ref>