4'33" by John Cage

[JimmyByrne09]

Possibly the greatest song ever written...the sound is MUCH more enhanced with the full orchestra.

4'33" - John Cage

 

[TheSound]

Never quite know what to make of 4'33" .... it's either a total pisstake, or actually a brilliant concept, probably half way between the two, I'm not sure I'd want to sit for over 4 minutes in a concert hall listening to people coughing and farting and scratching their crotch, but it's a clever idea in a sort of bizarre metaphysical way. There is a lot to be said for silence in music, the silence inbetween notes/movements can be an integral part of the performance, composers even write 'rests' into their scores, and it reminds me of something I saw yesterday at a concert in Liverpool, where the conductor clearly wanted to final note of the music of the Tchaikovsky symphony to just fade and be followed by a few seconds of silence, but some wiseass in the audience began clapping the moment the music finshed, which of course set the rest of the audience off clapping too, but the conductor Petrenko wasn't having any of it, and he remained motionless for a few seconds, so the clapping stopped!! THEN, about 5 seonds later he finally lowered his hands to signify that the performance was as far as he's concerned over, so the clapping began all over again, and then went on for a few minutes as he took his bow with the orchestra, but it was a slightly awkward moment. But it demonstrated the fact that there can be moments of silence before, or during, or after a performance which we are an audience need to respect, many conductors will try to hold the silence at the end in this way, but I think that's the first time I ever saw the applause actually come to a slighly embarrasing stop, and then start up again. Anyway, very interesting topic you rasied there JB09. There's plenty of terrible music around that would be far better replaced by silence, I'd personally rather listen to the John Cage than most rap music!!

 

[Nololob]

Imagine Slayer or Deep Purple doing cover of 4'33...

 

[LG]

The idea is fine, but I would not want to sit in a concert and 'listen' to it like TS said.

Not a big Cage fan anyway...in fact I don't think I have any of his albums.

 

[JimmyByrne09]

Anyway, very interesting topic you rasied there JB09. There's plenty of terrible music around that would be far better replaced by silence, I'd personally rather listen to the John Cage than most rap music!!

I was actually being sarcastic about the 'best song ever' thing...I for one think this "song" is an absolute joke. It's not music if there's nothing being played. I get the whole taking in the silence thing which is perfectly fine, but just don't go putting a title on it, and calling it a song...that's not what music is about at all. If it was, I would be listening to music 24/7 so therefore there wouldn't even be such an action as 'listening to music'.

 

[LG]

I remember a CD I downloaded a couple of years ago had a "bonus track" that consisted of over 7 minutes of silence...I didn't know what to make of it except what a complete waste of time it was.

 

[TheSound]

I was actually being sarcastic about the 'best song ever' thing...I for one think this "song" is an absolute joke. It's not music if there's nothing being played. I get the whole taking in the silence thing which is perfectly fine, but just don't go putting a title on it, and calling it a song...that's not what music is about at all. If it was, I would be listening to music 24/7 so therefore there wouldn't even be such an action as 'listening to music'.

Of course you're right, to suggest it's music is garbage. But there are no boundaries in art, the artist simply makes his/her own rules, and you either get it, or you don't. In the case of 4'33" most people obviously don't get it, and who can blame them. I don't know if John Cage actually ever referred to it as a 'song', or even as a piece of music, it's just out there and you make up your own mind, but since there is nothing but a blank score, with no musical anotations on it, then clearly it cannot be defined as 'music'. The whole idea is that the audience sets aside 4 minutes 33 seconds to simply listen to the environment around them, the point Cage was making is that there is actually no such thing as silence, even if you blocked your ears and went into a padded cell 100 feet underground, you'd still be able to hear yourself breathing and your own heart beating. Frank Zappa btw actually did 4.33 on an album, but then a lot of his abstract stuff was very 'unmusical' in other ways imo.

I've seen minimalist paintings hanging in galleries that are just basically a blank canvas, I've seen entire rooms of stuff like this in the Guggenheim in NYC...



...which is basically the same thing that John Cage was doing, but expressed in a different format.

 

[Nololob]

From wiki page.

Conceived around 1947–1948, while the composer was working on Sonatas and Interludes,[2] 4′33″ became for Cage the epitome of his idea that any sounds constitute, or may constitute, music. It was also a reflection of the influence of Zen Buddhism, which Cage studied since the late forties. In a 1982 interview, and on numerous other occasions, Cage stated that 4′33″ was, in his opinion, his most important work.

In 2010 a group was set up on the social networking website Facebook that encouraged people to buy a new rendition of 4′33″ in the week leading up to Christmas 2010, in the hope that it would prevent the winner of the seventh series of The X Factor topping the UK Singles Chart and achieving the Christmas number one. The group was inspired by an earlier campaign in which a Facebook group set up by Jon and Tracey Morter prompted people to buy "Killing in the Name" by American metal group Rage Against the Machine in the week before Christmas 2009, and has therefore been dubbed "Cage Against the Machine". The creators of the Facebook group hope that reaching number one would help to promote the piece and "make December 25 'a silent night'." As of December 14, 2010, the Facebook group has more than 85,000 members.

The campaign has received support from several celebrities. It first came into prominence after it was mentioned by British science writer Ben Goldacre on his Twitter profile. Within two weeks, British newspaper The Sun reported that the Facebook group had been backed by more than 3,000 members. One of several similar campaigns, the Facebook group was called "the only effort this year with a hope of [reaching Number One]" by The Guardian journalist Tom Ewing in September. XFM DJ Eddy Temple-Morris also voiced his support on his blog, as did Luke Bainbridge. The song failed to make number 1, but charted at number 21 on the UK Singles Chart.

Well, no matter what this actually means something.

 

[Lynch]

Imagine Slayer or Deep Purple doing cover of 4'33...

Imagine if Nirvana had done it. Would easily be the best thing they ever did (or didn't do)

 

[Nololob]

^^ I totally agree!