[gregorio]

John Cage 4'33": So what do you think? Music?

I think that's one of the worst recordings of the piece I've heard. Having said that, most of the recordings I've heard of the piece have been pretty bad and indeed, so have most of the "performances". It appears to be just recording hiss with the occasional cough, an attempt at recording silence, which misses the whole point of the piece in the first place. 4'33" is a piece of music which is ABOUT silence, not a piece of music which is supposed to BE silent!

G

 

[RRod]

I think that's one of the worst recordings of the piece I've heard. Having said that, most of the recordings I've heard of the piece have been pretty bad and indeed, so have most of the "performances". It appears to be just recording hiss with the occasional cough, an attempt at recording silence, which misses the whole point of the piece in the first place. 4'33" is a piece of music which is ABOUT silence, not a piece of music which is supposed to BE silent!

G

It's a bit like The Artist Is Present

 

[bigshot]

4'33" is a piece of music which is ABOUT silence, not a piece of music which is supposed to BE silent!

I remember reading Cage himself saying that it is about potential sound and the sounds of the audience around it when the sound is removed. He seemed to indicate that the audience noise was part of the piece.

 

[danadam]

I remember reading Cage himself saying that it is about potential sound and the sounds of the audience around it when the sound is removed. He seemed to indicate that the audience noise was part of the piece.

From wikipedia, John Cage speaking about the premiere of 4′33″:

They missed the point. There's no such thing as silence. What they thought was silence, because they didn’t know how to listen, was full of accidental sounds. You could hear the wind stirring outside during the first movement. During the second, raindrops began pattering the roof, and during the third the people themselves made all kinds of interesting sounds as they talked or walked out.

...
I'm sure it would sound best in 24 bits...

...

Calm down people! Just joking

 

[Cruelhand Luke]

It sounds so good for being recorded on the street.

 

[Steve999]

Wow did that make me smile!

It sounds so good for being recorded on the street.

 

[Steve999]

I've got an autographed copy of this (thanks to my wife, really)--check out the band!

Again, Bill Evans is recording in 1959!

Bill Potts and his Orchestra : Art Farmer, Harry Edison, Charlie Shavers, Bernie Glow, Marky Markowitz (tp) Bob Brookmeyer (v-tb) Frank Rehak, Jimmy Cleveland, Earl Swope (tb) Rod Levitt (b-tb) Gene Quill, Phil Woods (as) Zoot Sims, Al Cohn (ts) Sol Schlinger (bar) Bill Evans (p) Herbie Powell (g) George Duvivier (b-tb) Charlie Persip (d) Bill Potts (arr)

 

[gregorio]

I remember reading Cage himself saying that it is about potential sound and the sounds of the audience around it when the sound is removed. He seemed to indicate that the audience noise was part of the piece.

Yes, audience noise was PART of the piece, as were environmental sounds. His instruction was to have the windows open at the concert venue for this reason. So, there's no "potential" about it, there's actual sound. If he did ever say "potential" sound, he meant in terms of exactly which sounds, not in terms of whether there would be sound. He composed the piece sometime after visiting an anechoic chamber and realising there was no such thing as silence or rather, that human's couldn't experience actual silence. This is why the piece can't be properly "performed" or recorded at many standard classical music concert venues, you need some environmental sound (inc. Audience noise). However, there was no way of knowing what that environmental sound would/will be and Cage deliberately did not specify what it should be, so it's not "sound that has been organised to communicate", it's sound that has deliberately not been organised in order to communicate.

The piece then is not about silence, it's about what we perceive silence to be and that presents a compositional problem: If we can't perceive actual silence and as you can't demonstrate this by putting the audience in an anechoic chamber, how do you use sound/music to communicate silence and then communicate that it doesn't exist? This is why the piece requires a pianist to enter the stage and sit at a concert piano as if to perform. Cage is using expectation bias, that the piano will actually be played, and therefore when it isn't played, the audience will think it's silence but because there's a deliberately noticeable amount of environmental noise they'll not actually experience silence or even what people would normally call "silence". Furthermore, Cage was not only aware that many people would not "get it" and that the piece would be highly controversial but he actually relied upon it, because he wasn't just communicating the question "how do we perceive silence" but also, the more fundamental question "what is music"? Cage was very interested in knowing what audiences would actually perceive and for this reason he (or rather his students) conducted surveys of the audiences after several of the early performances. Interestingly, it seems Cage was a little too successful at creating the expectation bias, as on more than one occasion up to a third of the audience actually believed they'd heard the piano being played very quietly!

Also, the piece wasn't just a "bolt out of the blue". A few years earlier Pierre Schafer had developed the concept of environmental noise/sound being the sole type of sound used in the compositional palette and started the movement known a "Musique Concrete". Furthermore, as the actual sound/environmental noise in 4'33" is NOT determined by the composer and not notated in the score, it is "indeterminate". And again, "indeterminacy" has a history which dates back many centuries in classical music and largely due to Cage became a musical movement in it's own right, a musical movement which included or very strongly influenced many of the other great post war composers, Stockhausen, Xenakis, Riley, Boulez, Feldman, Lutoslawski and various others. Lastly, a great work of art, music or otherwise, is largely determined by the intensity of the thoughts/emotions it evokes. Most audience members of the time did indeed have an intense reaction to 4'33", either anger from many of those who didn't "get it" or for many of those who did, "one of the most intense listening experiences you can have".

It's easy to dismiss 4'33" as "not music", a stupid joke that any idiot could have created but it's not, it's actually a very clever composition and a sophisticated evolution of music composition techniques taken to the extreme. It's arguably not just a masterpiece but as one critic called it "the pivotal composition of this century". Again, maybe you don't "get it", maybe you don't want to "get it", maybe you're quite happy to completely ignore it and dismiss it as "not music". That's all absolutely fine and is your choice BUT, that is a subjective opinion, you CANNOT objectively state that it is not music. And, by eliminating it and "indeterminacy" in general from your definition of music, you are eliminating whole genres/sub-genres of music, many of the greatest and most influential modern era music composers and therefore doing exactly the opposite of your own repeated advice and exactly the same as those you are criticising!! For example:

"The series was designed to try to pry open the minds of people who listened to the same music all the time because they think that's the only thing they "like". When you analyze and think about music you can *understand* and *appreciate* it- which is a million times better than just *liking* it." - But you're not analysing, thinking about and trying to understand or appreciate 4'33" or indeterminacy in general, you're just ignoring/dismissing it as "not music".

"You just have to be sure you have a broad enough knowledge of the subject and eliminate the bias of your own personal tastes." - So why are YOU sticking so rigidly to "the bias of your own personal tastes"/opinions (of what is and is not music) and thereby limiting rather than broadening your knowledge?

G

 

[Steve999]

Thanks, Gregorio. That’s a true education for me—I had no idea. If you know of a good recorded performance of 4’33” (whether video or audio) please let me know and I’ll check t out.

Yes, audience noise was PART of the piece, as were environmental sounds. His instruction was to have the windows open at the concert venue for this reason. So, there's no "potential" about it, there's actual sound. If he did ever say "potential" sound, he meant in terms of exactly which sounds, not in terms of whether there would be sound. He composed the piece sometime after visiting an anechoic chamber and realising there was no such thing as silence or rather, that human's couldn't experience actual silence. This is why the piece can't be properly "performed" or recorded at many standard classical music concert venues, you need some environmental sound (inc. Audience noise). However, there was no way of knowing what that environmental sound would/will be and Cage deliberately did not specify what it should be, so it's not "sound that has been organised to communicate", it's sound that has deliberately not been organised in order to communicate.

The piece then is not about silence, it's about what we perceive silence to be and that presents a compositional problem: If we can't perceive actual silence and as you can't demonstrate this by putting the audience in an anechoic chamber, how do you use sound/music to communicate silence and then communicate that it doesn't exist? This is why the piece requires a pianist to enter the stage and sit at a concert piano as if to perform. Cage is using expectation bias, that the piano will actually be played, and therefore when it isn't played, the audience will think it's silence but because there's a deliberately noticeable amount of environmental noise they'll not actually experience silence or even what people would normally call "silence". Furthermore, Cage was not only aware that many people would not "get it" and that the piece would be highly controversial but he actually relied upon it, because he wasn't just communicating the question "how do we perceive silence" but also, the more fundamental question "what is music"? Cage was very interested in knowing what audiences would actually perceive and for this reason he (or rather his students) conducted surveys of the audiences after several of the early performances. Interestingly, it seems Cage was a little too successful at creating the expectation bias, as on more than one occasion up to a third of the audience actually believed they'd heard the piano being played very quietly!

Also, the piece wasn't just a "bolt out of the blue". A few years earlier Pierre Schafer had developed the concept of environmental noise/sound being the sole type of sound used in the compositional palette and started the movement known a "Musique Concrete". Furthermore, as the actual sound/environmental noise in 4'33" is NOT determined by the composer and not notated in the score, it is "indeterminate". And again, "indeterminacy" has a history which dates back many centuries in classical music and largely due to Cage became a musical movement in it's own right, a musical movement which included or very strongly influenced many of the other great post war composers, Stockhausen, Xenakis, Riley, Boulez, Feldman, Lutoslawski and various others. Lastly, a great work of art, music or otherwise, is largely determined by the intensity of the thoughts/emotions it evokes. Most audience members of the time did indeed have an intense reaction to 4'33", either anger from many of those who didn't "get it" or for many of those who did, "one of the most intense listening experiences you can have".

It's easy to dismiss 4'33" as "not music", a stupid joke that any idiot could have created but it's not, it's actually a very clever composition and a sophisticated evolution of music composition techniques taken to the extreme. It's arguably not just a masterpiece but as one critic called it "the pivotal composition of this century". Again, maybe you don't "get it", maybe you don't want to "get it", maybe you're quite happy to completely ignore it and dismiss it as "not music". That's all absolutely fine and is your choice BUT, that is a subjective opinion, you CANNOT objectively state that it is not music. And, by eliminating it and "indeterminacy" in general from your definition of music, you are eliminating whole genres/sub-genres of music, many of the greatest and most influential modern era music composers and therefore doing exactly the opposite of your own repeated advice and exactly the same as those you are criticising!! For example:

"The series was designed to try to pry open the minds of people who listened to the same music all the time because they think that's the only thing they "like". When you analyze and think about music you can *understand* and *appreciate* it- which is a million times better than just *liking* it." - But you're not analysing, thinking about and trying to understand or appreciate 4'33" or indeterminacy in general, you're just ignoring/dismissing it as "not music".

"You just have to be sure you have a broad enough knowledge of the subject and eliminate the bias of your own personal tastes." - So why are YOU sticking so rigidly to "the bias of your own personal tastes"/opinions (of what is and is not music) and thereby limiting rather than broadening your knowledge?

G

 

[bigshot]

The problem with most performances of 4'33" is that the audience isn't performing its part properly any more. They're supposed to get up and walk out of the concert hall angrily, not sit quietly and reverently. This is the same kind of conceptualism that killed fine art dead as a doornail.

 

[Steve999]

The problem with most performances of 4'33" is that the audience isn't performing its part properly any more. They're supposed to get up and walk out of the concert hall angrily, not sit quietly and reverently. This is the same kind of conceptualism that killed fine art dead as a doornail.

Speaking of!

 

[gregorio]

Thanks, Gregorio. That’s a true education for me—I had no idea. If you know of a good recorded performance of 4’33” (whether video or audio) please let me know and I’ll check t out.

I'm not sure there is such a thing as a good recorded performance of 4'33" or indeed just a good performance of it. Because the piece has become so famous, the most important elements of it no longer work as intended, the expectation bias that the piano will actually be played for example. The piece did what it intended, at the time but cannot now be experienced/appreciated as it was at the time. While this is true of many compositions ( that they can't be experienced as intended), they can still be "liked" despite that fact but this isn't really the case with 4'33". Good examples of this would be say Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor and Beethoven's 5th Symphony, the 5th Symphony being particularly relevant to 4'33" because: In the musical period prior to Beethoven (the Classical period), the concept was to give audiences what they would "like", to match or exceed the audience expectation of "good" fine art. Beethoven turned this concept on it's head, he realised that doing the exact opposite, giving the audience something they definitely didn't expect, even to the point of actually being utterly shocking, was not "bad" per se, it was actually exciting and entertaining, at least for those who "got it". In the classical period, pieces have fairly loud and fairly quiet parts but specifically arranged to be inoffensive. They invariably start unimportantly and fairly quiet, gradually build to fairly loud and bold theme/s and then die away again. It's all done very tastefully, smoothly and gradually with absolutely nothing offensive or even a little too surprising. Beethoven's 5th did the EXACT opposite, the boldest part is the very first note (and the following 7 notes), then it instantly goes quiet, builds to very loud and powerful, then drops instantly to quiet again, all in the first 25 seconds. It must have been shocking beyond words to the audiences of it's day and Beethoven reportedly absolutely maximised it's shock value. Audience etiquette at the time was not what it eventually became, many would turn up late and conversations continued even after the piece had started. It was reported of one performance Beethoven conducted himself, that he held his baton raised for several minutes, until the audience went "silent", to maximise the impact/shock of the piece's opening. Because of this, those 8 notes are arguably the most recognisable and iconic 8 notes in the entire history of music, even though most of it's intended shock value can no longer be experienced. Beethoven's new concept effectively killed the Classical music period and kick started what became known as the Romantic period. Of course, many at the time didn't "get it", arguably the most famous criticism was, "Beethoven always sounds to me like the upsetting of bags of nails, with here and there an also dropped hammer." - Along with other contemporary criticisms the narrative was; it's just noise, NOT music! ... Sound familiar?

[1] The problem with most performances of 4'33" is that the audience isn't performing its part properly any more. They're supposed to get up and walk out of the concert hall angrily, not sit quietly and reverently.
[2] This is the same kind of conceptualism that killed fine art dead as a doornail.

1. What "part properly"? Cage did not compose "a part" for the audience, so how can they not perform it properly? They are NOT "supposed to get up and walk out of the concert hall angrily"! I'm sure Cage realised it was a possibility but he didn't intend the audience to do that (or not to do that), he didn't "suppose" or intend the audience to do anything beyond creating some indeterminate noise, along some significant amount of (also undetermined) environmental noise. You're now just making stuff up to suit your agenda, which along with trying to present a subjective opinion as objective fact, is a common ploy of audiophile myth and marketing, a ploy which you yourself so admirably try to combat, usually! Come on bigshot, you're better than this!!

2. Indeed, exactly the same kind of conceptualism that killed the "fine art" classical music period dead as a doornail. Beethoven was clearly a pig, you must really hate him?

G

 

[Glmoneydawg]

Every generation tries to shock the generation before them with their music....Beethoven was the Johny Rotten of his day.

 

[castleofargh]

Every generation tries to shock the generation before them with their music....Beethoven was the Johny Rotten of his day.

 

[gregorio]

Every generation tries to shock the generation before them with their music....Beethoven was the Johny Rotten of his day.

I'm sure you realise that's somewhat of an oversimplification and therefore is only somewhat true. Possibly the best example is the evolution from the Baroque period to the Classical period, which was quite shocking in the sense that it was a big paradigm change and the musical style was so different but classical period music is not intended to be shocking, if anything, quite the opposite. In Beethoven's case, it was deliberately shocking, where actual shock value was the intent and arguably, Beethoven was the first to use shock purely for the sake of being shocking but even so, we cannot define Beethoven purely by this fact, he did so much more than just occasionally being shocking and many of his works do not directly employ that tool/tactic. A lot of the time he was just expressing himself with little/no regard to whether or not he was being shocking.

The Sex Pistols were shocking but was that just a consequence of their rebellion against their highly manicured art rock predecessors or were they specifically trying to be shocking? There's probably few better examples of deliberately trying to shock than Jonny Rotten but it's rarely absolutely binary, even in the case of the Sex Pistols.

G