Where the Heart Beats: John Cage, Zen Buddhism, and the Inner Life of Artists

Condition: Very Good. Trade Paperback. Light shelf wear and minor edge wear from normal handling and storage. Covers remain clean and bright with light rubbing and faint corner wear. Binding is tight and square. Pages are clean and unmarked with no writing, highlighting, or bookplates noted. Includes notes, bibliography, and index. Listing photos show the exact copy included in this sale. An examination of composer and experimental artist John Cage’s intellectual and spiritual development, focusing on how Zen Buddhism transformed his ideas about creativity, artistic control, and the act of creation. Larson traces how Cage’s engagement with Zen and D. T. Suzuki helped him reconsider ego, intention, and attention, while his use of the I Ching gave him a practical method for introducing chance and allowing unexpected results to emerge. These ideas led to experiments with indeterminacy, environmental sound, and silence, including 4'33", and ultimately influenced artistic practices far beyond experimental music. The book explores questions that remain relevant to artists, writers, musicians, and other creative people: how to relinquish control without abandoning craft, how chance can generate new possibilities, how attentive listening can alter perception, and how the creative process changes when the artist stops trying to dictate every outcome.…