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Re: Re: 639 Year Long Concert - Cage Composition - "ASLSP"



I have to say that every time I've seen 4'33", it's been one of the
most interesting pieces on the program.

It usually goes the same way.

First the audience shuts up -- and then you get to hear the sound of
the room.  It's very rare to hear what a concert hall sounds like with
people in it not making a sound -- it's very different from the shiny
sound of an empty concert hall.

Then there's a rustling of paper all around you as people start
looking at their programs to figure out what's going on... and this
moves into a sort of duet where coughs are the main sound (people
almost always cough in a concert hall to express their displeasure!)
and people talking sotto voce (explaining what's happening to their
friends) are the background.

Stupendous!

On 1/9/06, a k butler <akbutler@tiscali.co.uk> wrote:
> At 03:39 09/01/06, you wrote:
> > > Are you saying that I don't get it? I play experimental music too
> > and have a
> > > very open mind (heck, check out my Project MRI in the CT 
>Collective). One
> > > can get yet, yet still call bullshit on the significance or novelty 
>of a
> > > work. That's my subjective right as an artist and free thinker.
> >
> >You can have an open mind and still not get it!
>
> ...but the implication is always that there's something to get ;-)
>
>
> >Point is -- I'll bet it sounds good.  I like sustained organ tones.
>
> how long are you going to sit there for?

I don't know.  I've spent over an hour at the Dream House for example:
 http://melafoundation.org/main.htm

>
> >And I'll bet it makes you think.
>
> An interesting Cage fact:-
> 4'33 is not a silent piece of music.
> The score plainly states that the performer should open doors and
> windows at the venue in order to maximize the amount of background sound.
> Absence of sound was not the intention, just absence of intentional 
>sound.
>
> ...and even Cage would refer to it as "my silent piece", perhaps
> after the critics
> had informed him .
>
> So who "didn't get it" ?

The piece itself is silent -- it prescribes no sounds of any types.

The concert hall of course cannot be silent as silence can never be 
attained...

http://www.lcdf.org/indeterminacy/s.cgi?6
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Minutes_Thirty_Three_Seconds