Editing Lou Harrison (section)

===First musical education===
[[File:Henry Cowell portrait NYPL 4002097 (cropped).jpg|thumb|upright 0.7|Harrison considered [[Henry Cowell]] ''(pictured)'' his greatest musical inspiration and one of his closest friends]] After graduating high school in 1934, Harrison enrolled in San Francisco State College (now [[San Francisco State University]]). It was there where he took [[Henry Cowell]]'s "Music of the Peoples of the World" course being offered by the [[UC Berkeley Extension]]. Harrison quickly became one of Cowell's most enthusiastic students, and he subsequently appointed him as class assistant.{{sfnp|Sachs|2012|p=264}}<ref>Baker, Alan (2002). [http://musicmavericks.publicradio.org/features/interview_harrison.html "An interview with Lou Harrison"]; part of the American Public Media/''American Mavericks'' website. Retrieved June 26, 2022.</ref> After attending a [[Palo Alto]] performance of one of Cowell's pieces for piano and improvised percussion in June 1935, Harrison would proclaim it to be one of the most extraordinary works he had ever heard. He would later incorporate similar elements of [[found percussion]] and [[aleatoricism|aleatoric]] performance in his music.{{sfnp|Sachs|2012|p=94}} In fall of the same year, Harrison approached Cowell for private [[music composition|composition]] lessons, initiating a personal and professional friendship that continued until Cowell's death from cancer in 1965.{{sfnp|Harrison|1997|p=166}}{{sfnp|Sachs|2012|p=261}}{{sfnp|Kostelanetz|1992|p=383}} He was the first to publish Harrison's music, through the publishing house he founded, New Music Edition.{{sfnp|Kostelanetz|1992|p=404}} During Cowell's four-year stay in [[San Quentin Prison]] on a morals charge involving homosexual acts, Harrison publicly appealed for his release, and regularly visited him for composition lessons through the prison's bars.{{sfnp|Miller|Lieberman|2006|p=13}}{{sfnp|Miller|Lieberman|2006|p=15}}{{sfnp|Sachs|2012|p=329}}

While still studying at age 19, he became an interim [[professor]] of music at [[Mills College]] in [[Oakland, California|Oakland]] from 1936 to 1939. In 1941, he transferred to the [[University of California, Los Angeles]] to work in the dance department; teaching students [[Laban movement analysis]] and playing piano [[accompaniment]].{{sfnp|Kostelanetz|1992|p=388}} While there, he took theory lessons from [[Arnold Schoenberg]], leading him to further his interest in the infamous [[twelve-tone technique]].<ref name=swed>[[Mark Swed|Swed, Mark]] (2020). [https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2020-12-02/how-to-listen-lou-harrison-composer-gamelan "Lou Harrison's generosity endures when we most need it"] ''[[Los Angeles Times]]''. Retrieved June 27, 2022.</ref><ref name="Miller">Miller, Leta (2007). [http://www.dramonline.org/albums/lou-harrison-in-retrospect/notes "Lou Harrison – In Retrospect"]. ''New World Records''. Retrieved June 25, 2022.</ref> He would later say, "... it was no jump at all to learn to write twelve-tone music; Henry's the one who taught me."{{sfnp|Miller|Lieberman|2006|p=13}} The pieces he was writing at this time, however, were largely [[percussion instrument|percussive]] works using unconventional materials, such as discarded [[drum brake|car brake drums]] and [[waste container|garbage cans]], as musical instruments.<ref>Mirapaul, Matthew (1997). [https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/cyber/mirapaul/051597mirapaul.html "For Composer Lou Harrison, Penmanship Counts"]. ''The New York Times''. Retrieved June 29, 2022.</ref> Few of his surviving pieces – including one of the earliest known examples, Prelude for Grandpiano (1937) – follow the [[serialism|serialist]] twelve-tone idiom.<ref name=tom/>{{sfnp|Miller|Lieberman|2006|p=14}} He began using [[tone cluster]]s in his piano works, à la Cowell, but differed from his technique by calling for an "octave bar" – a flat wooden bar approximately an octave long, with a slightly concave rubber bottom.{{sfnp|Miller|Lieberman|2006|p=16}} This allowed the clusters to be much louder than they otherwise would be, and gave the piano more of an unpitched, [[gong]]-like sound. His experimental and free-wheeling style flourished during this period, with pieces like the Concerto for Violin and Percussion Orchestra (1940) and ''Labyrinth'' (1941).<ref>Fairchild, Frederick (1999). [https://www.pas.org/about/hall-of-fame/lou-harrison "Lou Harrison"], [[Percussive Arts Society]]. Retrieved June 27, 2022.</ref> This ultramodern and avant-garde music captured the attention of [[John Cage]], another one of Cowell's students.{{sfnp|Kostelanetz|1992|p=388}}{{sfnp|Miller|Lieberman|2006|p=5}} Harrison and Cage would collaborate in the years following, and engage in several romantic liaisons.<ref name=swed/>{{sfnp|Miller|Lieberman|2006|p=16}}