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Name: Soh Wai Keong, Paul Lecturer’s Name: Natalie Alexander Tze Course Number: BAMU3A Date: 04 October 2015 Title: 4’33” and the Silence in Music Introduction:
The purpose of this essay is to go in depth of what goes on behind the ‘Silent’ piece composed by John Cage (1912 – 1992), its history and radical changes it brought to the world of music especially in the realm of what is called chance music. The writing serves to help to understand the concept behind Silence within the realm of music, especially since 4’33” literally is pretty much to an average person, the definition of what silence really means. However, the essay hopes to allow people to understand that the 4’33” is more than just silence. In fact it represented a gateway to the various limits of manipulating acoustical sounds. 1. Brief Overview and Description of the debut premiere 4’33”
Looking at the title of the piece, it does seem fairly odd. Most works that Cage did have evocative titles that have at least some meaning behind it. But here in 1952, the title looks merely a number from a clock. It was one of his ultimate breakthroughs that shaped the world of music forever. The world premiere of 4’33” caused a huge stir. ‘Composed’ in 1952, the dubbed ‘Silent Piece’ soon became a target of absolute notoriety and controversy when it made its debut world premier at Woodstock New York on August 29, 1952. It was performed by an associate of Cage, David Tudor for an audience supporting the Benefit Artists Welfare Fund which also advocates modern comtemporary arts and music.
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Tudor sat his score, which was nothing more than a manuscript in typical notation with blank measures and his cues for the 3 movements, on his piano. Then he setup his stop 1
Solomon, Larry J. ‘The Sounds of Silence." 4'33" 1998, 1998, rev 2002. Web. 5 Nov. 2015.
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watch as he had done for Cage’s Water Music to monitor the execution in the precise intended time. “He timed three Movements. Nothing for 30 seconds. Then for two minutes twenty-three seconds; then one minute forty seconds in which at this point there was already commotion amongst the audience. Tudor closed the piano lid then walked off stage. That was all. 2 It was to no surprise that hell broke loose, with some members of the audience would walk out during the 4’33” as no notes were supposed to be played. And Cage said in an interview that they ‘even have not forgetten 30 years later. They’re still angry’.
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today, even to someone with experienced ears let alone an average person, it is still normal to have some sort of a grudge towards 4’33”. Today, surprisingly, for all the score’s simplicity and though the true score does not exist, it somehow still gained copyrights for some reason. In 2002 Mike Batt was involved in a court case for infringing the some of the work that he used in Batt’s own piece one minute of silence. Of course, if someone takes away the actions done during the piece out of the equation, then it is really 4’33” of silence. It is not surprising that it has gained that much notoriety and controversy over the years. This leads to a much debated age-old argument that has been raised even in the age of the internet, ‘Is it music?’. On the contrary, if one has ventured to the world of contemporary electroacoustic music, he might find it easy that way to see some musical sense. Hence, today 4’33” can be said that it can be simultaneously, in Kyle Gann’s words “one of the most misunderstood pieces of music ever written and yet, at times one of the avant-garde’s best understood as well.” There are reasons why that Cage did all this, for that we need to look at its history. 2
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Pritchett, ‘The piano in my life: What silence Taught John Cage’ Web. 2011. Solomon, Larry J. ‘The Sounds of Silence." 4'33" 1998, rev 2002. Web. 5 Nov. 2015.
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History and things that led to 4’33”.
Prior to the 4’33”, in the 1930s and 1940s, John Cage already many compositions in his belt and was already an established inventor in avant garde music. The most famous of his works that featured include his ‘Water Music’, ‘Sonatas and Interludes’, ‘Duet for two flutes’ & ‘Concerto for Prepared Piano and Orchestra’. He was taught by his mentor Arnold Schoenburg whom he regarded highly of. But that was just the beginning for what was going to be the pinnacle of some of the ridiculous compositions and techniques he devised and some experiences that led to the 4’33”. So why would anyone ever composed a music where no notes are meant to play? And why and how did John Cage would be the last person having the gall to come up with this? There were many reasons that led to its conception but the following three were some of the main influences that I learned from a recent special masterclass cum casual performance I attended in LaSalle College of the Arts conducted by Dr Margeret Leng Tan, one of Cage’s very own students.
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The first she explained was his Water Music. It involved the combination of a few set equipment like a deck of cards, a cup of water, a flask and a duck whistle and even a radio that formed a basis of music. The actions which includes the slamming of the lid are part of the different timbres and sounds that occur. So in this concept, whatever sound that is heard forms a basis of his music even if it is unintended like the radio, basically by chance. Hence the term, chance music which became a genre all within its own. In that sense, timbral music, it is still musical in that sense and something we can make Figure 1: Rauschenberg's White Painting 4
Leng Tan, Margaret. “Masterclass – Dr Margaret Leng Tan.” LASALLE College of the Arts,
Singapore. 22 Oct. 2015. Lecture
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out with. The second possible one was the inspiration of an artist Robert Rauschenberg’s White Paintings. These were literally paintings of White ( Fig. 15 ) & nothing else. A blank painting in itself was a visual representation of silence rather than just silence in sound. And like how John Cage sees 4’33” as music, Rauschenberg sees blank art as art. What something as simple as the White Painting can mean quite a number of things. Perhaps the most influential that led to the 4’33” was by chance when Cage was paying a visit to Harvard University in 1951. He came across an anechoic chamber, a room state of the art for the time with walls, floors and ceiling designed to acoustically completely negate all sorts of echos and delays of both soundwaves and electromagnetic waves within the room. It is also meant to block out any external sound sources trying to enter that space. However, as top-of-the-line it was even with all that acoustic insulation, he told the engineer on duty that he discovered that he could still hear 2 sounds; a low-pitched one and a high pitched one. His reply was that the sounds were not the fault of the room but the sounds he heard were emitting within his own body. The high sound was the ringing of his internal nervous system while the low noise, his blood in circulation. 5 His experience within the anechoic chamber alone finally busted a myth of obtaining total silence. As he thought initially that some actual silence existed. And after putting it to the test, he thought that: ‘ I had honestly and naively thought that silence existed. So I had not really put silence to the test. There is no such thing as silence. Try as we may to make silence, we cannot .
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Solomon, Larry J. "The Sounds of Silence." 4'33" 2002. Web. 1 Nov. 2015. Revill, David. The Roaring Silence: John Cage, a life p163. Bloomsbury London, Paperback
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That quote basically meant that sound is always here to stay regardless of how far you manipulate and minimize it. With that experience in hand, he began to take interest over the use of silence in his music which along with his love of experimenting new things for the last five years since 1947 eventually led him to the pinnacle in musical audacity, a piece without any sounds in it (and notes being played), only silence. But really in a nutshell, the 4’33” was a combination of White Painting (Blank notation), anechoic Chamber (No music is being played and with almost every action not making a sound as far as possible), and water music (actions and things that go on which includes some of the hell raised by the audience). Silence in Music Philosophy.
The philisophy behind silence is mystics like Peter Sterry and St. John of the Cross claims that it is the pre-requisite for achieving spiritual contemplation. 7 For example, in the medieval age, monks and priests in a monastery and a chapel would ideally prefer silence to facilitate meditation and prayer. That is until the plainchants like the Gregorian Chant eventually became part of their prayers, devotions and the liturgy which helped even better and at least the chants still had some form of melody. Across the spectrum however, in this day and age where concepts can come from just about anywhere, both in terms of tonal and atonal music. John Cage has an entirely different perspection after the visit to the anechoic chamber. When I think of silence in music, the song titled ‘The Sound of Silence’ written by Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel came to mind. I would not be surprised if that was inspired by John Cage’s 4’33”. And for all he has done in that composition and the Water Music, it became clear that John eventually having the belief of ‘Silence and Sound being coequals of
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Losseff, Nicky. "Introduction." Silence, Music, Silent Music . Aldershot, Hampshire, England: Ashgate, 2007. 8. Print.
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each other ’ . In the teachings of Zen, every single element and object has its own entity; heart, mind and spirit and it held true to Cage that Silence is its own spirit being as much as music is. Typically we think of silence as a musical element that renders, well, silence. We think of silence in segments whenever there are rests that last for a small duration like a few beats or a few measures in the piece so as not to disrupt the piece, for flow and phrasing is important to any music. Cage’s use of silence however is the direct opposite and uses huge chunks as part of music. That was part of his bag of composition techniques drawn from his study of Zen Buddhism, the Eastern and Asian philosophies as well as other techniques taught from his mentor Arnold Schoenburg like the 12-tone as well as the 25-tone row. All that helped him even further and he allowed himself to listen to the world as combining several unintented sounds to form music. After all, it was his job as a creator and composition of music to understand and recognize the heart of the various sounds.
SILENCE OF MUSIC IN REALITY: IS 4’33” REALLY MUSIC?
In a quote, John Cage says: 9
“Which is more musical?A truck passing by a factory, or a truck passing by a
music school?” (Silence: Lectures and writings by John Cage) Common sense would probably tell you, that a track passing by a music school would be the obvious answer. That is actually a very valid question which would imply that Cage’s musical philosophy had been steered in a totally new direction. It is largely thanks to the constant evolution of technology which opens up an all new world of possibilities and combinations. With that said, the nature of how music would be had changed.
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Pritchett: “Piano in my Life”, 2009. Web. Cage, John. "Experimental Music." Silence: Lectures and Writings . Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan UP, 1961. 41. Print. 9
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However if we were to look at 4’33”, and ask yourself this very question ‘is 4’33” music?’ To a classical musician like myself or somebody who believes in a strong classical music philosophy, the obvious answer would be ‘no’ for very obvious reasons. We normally define music by having a tonal center or have at least a melodic shape or structure to it. Even as music periods evolved over the ages to the early contemporary period where the tonal center or key is less established like the twelve-tone scale from Schoenburg, you can still make out a certain form of music. However once we shift to the realm of avant garde music, that would be totally a different ball game altogether. And I firmly declare this based on experience as a member of the audience in several ‘concerts’ and my research on Karlheinz Stockhausen. Once you get to a certain volume threshold, the combination of electro-acoustical sounds and a total lack of tonality would make music no longer that acceptable to hear. In other words, it would be when it would be perceived as a whole wall of noise with sounds that you cannot make out of. I am most certain that people who do possess absolute pitch (or otherwise known as perfect pitch) run into this pet peeve of being annoyed with sounds out of tune especially at a high volume (which is noise at this point) because I am one myself. But if one would control and balance out both volume and timberal quality of sounds (whether in pitch or off pitch) then it becomes lesser of a verge of making them into noise which was achieved by 4’33” by making noise less of an annoyance. Additionally, when one would come to understand the realm and philosophy of atonal, chance and avant garde music and compose pieces that actually do make sense, then pieces like the 4’33” for them would be easier to appreciate. Cage believed the mechanics of producing what is musically sound seem much more open now with all sorts of possibilities of using different timbres, where it is intended sound or sound created from chance. And no doubt that this philosophy would open a whole new
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field of what we see music as. Karlheinz Stockhausen was among the few to have broken new ground for using electronic sounds with Gesung Der Junglinge: ‘Song of the Youths’ being one of his most famous examples of electronic music. That was one end of the spectrum that can be conceived as music and the end end is about literally not playing any note. Now for some, the 4’33” is viewed as a creation of the sounds that goes on when a person is preparing for a concert or event, rather than leading the ears of the audience directionally in a more melodious sense. There is another area that uses silence in music this very same way very commonly as an element today: Film and Music. But what started out first in silent film was pretty much the direct opposite. With the event of the silent film, music on top of totally undubbed sounds would have to be composed to determine and emote drama and conflict. As the film industry evolved later on, film music as we now know, the absence of music when incorporated properly, combining with other ambient or other sounds, can be extremely effective. (Page 8 – Silence Music, Silent Music)
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And in a way 4’33” did portray conflict and drama (which was quite
literally caused on the audience). In a world now filled with sound, the general rule of thumb now is 9 adding more has been the obvious answer to creating an impact, which rendered silence in music and film, pretty much a forgotten art. Only a few exceptions where total lack of sounds really worked were those of the action movies like the Matrix which involve the element of freezing of time. That could serve some musical sense on its own. On the contrary with regards to (total) silence being music, the biggest problem of 4’33” was it was stemmed from the reality: His experience of silence as a composer, not just
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Losseff, Nicky. "Introduction." Silence, Music, Silent Music . Aldershot, Hampshire, England: Ashgate, 2007. 8. Print.
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the listener, a fact that I can completely understand. That was potentially one of the few reasons why it was musical to Cage but not so much to me (but less so with electro-acoustic avant-garde music), since he had as a testament to how far he had come. But as much as I have to agree that his use of silence was a total paradigm shift and created such an interesting topic in the world of chance music, a piece without any music being played whatsoever does left me a little annoyed with it. Of course there are other opinions, and really it all depends on the individual’s perspective for there is no right or wrong answer to this question.
CONCLUSION
The bottomline is John Cage’s 4’33” may have caused a huge stir when it first premiered in 1952 by David Tudor. However it ultimately played a huge part in the art of silence as a compositional technique and concepts. I know people hated 4’33” for silence being used in such a way not normal to mankind. Then again, in the realm of chance music and electronic music and now film music, silence may not be as prominent now or used in huge chunks but it still resides in many a composer’s toolbox as an available technique to create tension and drama and silence in music is still commonly being used today by movie filmscorers to great effect. In conclusion, I end off with one of his quotes: As life goes on without me, silence will continue to exist.
__________________________________________________________________________ References
Revill, David. The Roaring Silence: John Cage, a life p163. Bloomsbury London, Paperback Pritchett James, ‘The piano in my life’ Web. 2011. Pritchett James, ‘The Music of John Cage’, Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge, 1993.
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Solomon, Larry J. ‘The Sounds of Silence." 4'33" 1998, rev 2002. Web. 5 Nov. 2015. Losseff, Nicky. "Introduction." Silence, Music, Silent Music. Aldershot, Hampshire, England: Ashgate, 2007. 8. Print. Cage, John. "Experimental Music." Silence: Lectures and Writings. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan UP, 1961. 6. Print. Cage, John. "Composition as Process." Silence: Lectures and Writings. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan UP, 1961. 6. Print. Leng Tan, Margaret. “Masterclass – Dr Margaret Leng Tan.” LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore. 22 Oct. 2015. Lecture
