EPIGRAPH

I can distinguish three ways of composing music nowadays. The first is well-known--
that of writing music, as I do. It continues. A new way has developed through electronic
music and the construction of new instruments of making music by performing it, rather
than writing it. And a third way has developed in recording studios, which is similar to the
way artists work in their studios to make paintings. Music can be built up layer by layer
on recording tape, not to give a performance or to write music, but to appear on a record.

--John Cage, in conversation with Ilhan Mimaroglu (1985).