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John Cage taught experimental composition at the New School for Social Research multiple times between 1956 and 1959. This photograph shows the catalytic Summer 1958 cohort, which included Allan Kaprow (seated, right), George Brecht (seated, left), Al Hansen (standing), Jackson Mac Low, and Dick Higgins. Each week Cage asked the students to compose a score in response to a prompt, which might specify readymade “instruments” (like radios) or chance procedures (like tossing coins). The students would perform these rough-and-ready scores with Cage during class and debate their qualities. In this photograph, Kaprow and Brecht talk to Hansen about realizing his score for a portable collection of noisy toys—whirler tube, cat-meow, and bicycle bell, among others. Kaprow took Cage’s course more often than anyone else and affirmed several times that he created what he considered to be his first happenings (avant la lettre) as assignments for this class.