The elements involved in the performance of this new music are mostly uncontrolled, the composer only laying down certain parameters to stake out the timespace-frame. With the step back, it is opened up to possibility and thus loosens up. Historically necessary is the openness for the clearing of timespace into which sounds burst like bubbles. Music first has to be cleared of preconceived, pre-ordered sounds, the slate wiped clean to clear the timespace for openness and receptivity. There are many ways of saying why.
Stillness is the timespace in which things, including sounds, happen.
Happening comes towards us out of the future. Cage proceeds from the insight that music happens in time, and that time is the most fundamental element of music. We exist towards the future, as long as we exist. Things come toward us out of the clearing of the future, mostly unforeseen. Only as long as we exist is this timespace with its three ecstasies open to us.