Blogcritics: Comments on Is silence music?

Comment by David

Wed, 14 Jan 2004 18:24:24 EST

John Cage somehow weaseled free music lessons out of Schoenberg, who dropped him because he had, I believe the words were, "no musical ability." He also described jazz as something like "one person trying to play louder than all the others." I have nothing against a good joke, but John Cage was a fraud and a creep.

Comment by Eric Olsen

Wed, 14 Jan 2004 09:27:22 EST

The other issue here is the notion of an "art world," as Arthur Danto famously characterized it. He says there is a community of art works that interact with each other, so the ral question is where does a given work of art fit in to this greater art world.

Comment by Craig Lyndall

Wed, 14 Jan 2004 09:09:06 EST

More recently this has been brought up in a short story by Nick Hornby (High Fidelity) called Nipple Jesus in a collection of short stories he edited called Speaking With the Angel. Check it out Nipple Jesus was Hornby's contribution to the collection.

Comment by ParticleMan

Wed, 14 Jan 2004 00:29:25 EST

What if the frame itself is the art? And can art be outside of its physical or conceptual frame? Ie, extra-art. this useless post brought to you by, Particleman

Comment by Eric Olsen

Tue, 13 Jan 2004 17:22:32 EST

Of course the other question is can you have ONLY a concept and still have art? Is silence enough of something to give the concept substance? If a tree falls in the woods and the pope hears it will the bear take a crap?

Comment by Mark Saleski

Tue, 13 Jan 2004 12:07:55 EST

here's the zappa quote: The most important thing in art is The Frame. For painting: literally; for other arts: figuratively--because, without this humble appliance, you can't know where The Art stops and The Real World begins. You have to put a 'box' around it because otherwise, what is that shit on the wall? If John Cage, for instance, says, "I'm putting a contact microphone on my throat, and I'm going to drink carrot juice, and that's my composition," then his gurgling qualifies as his composition because he put a frame around it and said so. "Take it or leave it, I now will this to be music." After that it's a matter of taste. Without the frame-as-announced, it's a guy swallowing carrot juice.

Comment by Tom Johnson

Tue, 13 Jan 2004 11:03:07 EST

What's intriguing about 4'33 is that it itself is really nothing. Maybe you can argue that the open mics pick up some ambient sounds, but really, how much of the room can you really "hear"? How much of what you attribute to the recording is actually going on around you - or is even the sound of your own body? I remember reading that people being subjected to extreme isolation, where they prevent you from hearing even your own voice in these specially built tanks, reported hearing sounds after a while. It turned out that what they were hearing was their own body process - blood coursing through veins, digestion, heart beats. People make fun of 4'33" but what it does is give the listener a completely different frame of reference which forces you to evaluate sound in a completely different way than you may ever have before. However, the idea of it being "played" live, especially over radio, is pretty comical. I'd love to see the expressions of listeners who tune in right in the middle, and hear the announcers at the end, "You've just been listening to the BBC Symphony Orchestra performing John Cage's classic 4'33"."

Comment by Joe

Tue, 13 Jan 2004 10:41:00 EST

Exactly.

Comment by Eric Olsen

Tue, 13 Jan 2004 10:40:21 EST

silent, conceptual cowbell

Comment by Joe

Tue, 13 Jan 2004 10:34:59 EST

More Cowbell!

Comment by Eric Olsen

Tue, 13 Jan 2004 09:08:29 EST

Which applies to art in general: it's art if you say it is and can provide a conceptual framework in which to place it.

Comment by Mark Saleski

Tue, 13 Jan 2004 08:56:23 EST

..and it goes along with some of the ideas that Zappa spoke about: which is that something is music if you perceive it as music.

Comment by Eric Olsen

Tue, 13 Jan 2004 08:49:02 EST

Seriously, what you're "paying" for is the idea of silence as music. This is conceptual art as applied to music. I also think the suit was outrageous.

Comment by ClubhouseCancer

Tue, 13 Jan 2004 08:48:02 EST

A "clean" version (for Wal-Mart) and a "dirty" version (for the rest of us adults).

Comment by Eric Olsen

Tue, 13 Jan 2004 08:47:33 EST

great one!

Comment by Craig Lyndall

Tue, 13 Jan 2004 08:44:23 EST

I think they should make a radio edit that is about 3.2 minutes long.

Comment by Mark Saleski

Tue, 13 Jan 2004 08:39:41 EST

i love it when a 4'33" discussion comes up. everybody gets so crazy about the issues. loads of fun. ...tho i thought the Cage lawsuit was really stupid.