John Cage Music And Silence Analysis

Richard Taruskin’s essay helps expound on John Cage’s notion of autonomous art. He writes that, Cage brought about the true aesthetics of Western art in what he calls to ‘its purest peak.’ Taruskin also relates to Cage’s work as having a notion of ‘purposeful purposelessness.’ Cage’s work was in itself a form of autonomous art because of its hallowedness and special modes of performance, like the piece 4’33”. In addition, there is a middle man who interfaces the audience

Is silence really golden? Paul Simon, the writer of the song “The Sound of Silence”, demonstrates the issue of silence using many different techniques to relay his message. The message that the narrator of the song is trying to convey is that people are ignorant and oblivious to the silence and ultimately what is happening around them. The use of tone, personification, and rhyme allows this message of the song to be heard by the listener.

For instance, Cage has claimed in a interview that he loves sounds just how they are and they do not to be anymore than they already (John Cage about Silence). In more simpler terms, he is asserting the fact that he believes planned out music with specific notes and certain melodies is no better than the sounds heard through daily life. Moreover, the significance one might find in 4'33" is the utter simplicity and beauty that can be found within the piece because of it's compelling and influential nature (Pritchett, 10). Another concept that made Cage's music one of the most misunderstood pieces ever written is how people now a days are often used to music being in an exact way. Music in today's society is at a certain pace of tempo, contain repetitive chants, and a specific rhythmic pattern. Yet, for many, Cage's 4'33" was a kind of artistic prayer in a serene, calm environment that opened the ears and allowed one to hear the world anew. Likewise, Cage used an act of framing, of enclosing environmental and unintended sounds in a moment of attention in order to open the mind to the fact that all sounds are music (Kyle Gann, 2). The essential reason behind this new approach to listening is to establish a new understanding of music itself by blurring the traditional boundaries between art and life. Overall, the context within Cage's composition is different to every person since each individual finds a distinct interpretation because sounds can not be replicated to be sounded the same in every

John Cage (1912-1992) was an American composer whose most famous work is actually not music at all. The piece is called, 4’33”, otherwise known as “The Silent Piece”, is just that, four minutes and 33 seconds of silence. Since I didn’t know what to expect, I thought the sound on my computer was broken!!! I waited and waited for him to begin, then, just like that, it was over. The significance of the piece is its simplicity. It is meant to teach us that there is no such thing as “true silence” (NPR). No matter how quiet you think it is, there is always a sound if you are still and listen carefully to what is actually going on around you. The piece was fist played in August 1952 in a tiny auditorium called Maverick Concert Hall in Hurley, New York and the musicians sat on stage for four minutes and 33 seconds.

Silence is a time for the true self to connect to the flow of energy around. For the silent piece “4’33”, the performance usually goes like this: a performer goes on stage, sits at the piano and opens the keyboard lid but sits quietly for the duration with seldom turns of music pages. After each movement, the performer closes and reopens the lid and sits again, at the end he closes the lid, bows and walks off stage (Peter Gutmann, 1). However, the reactions of the audience and the sound of the environment is what create the music. The tension builds in the hall because people are confronted with an unexpected silence which stimulates many responses and makes sounds r through the ruffling of the audience and the area of the hall. In the hall, coughing, sneezing, un-wrapping of gum or mints, shifting in seats, opening a door, the air conditioning, or any other aspect can occur as the nature of the outside world such as wind, the passing of an airplane, crunching of leaves, and other natural aspects also occur (Eric Rockwell, 1). This piece becomes a personal sound because every listener can create their own reaction. Overall the balance between nature and human sounds are what John Cage considers music. Each sound has a distinct tone and duration that the audience can become aware of instead of how they usually disregard it. Through this silent piece, Cage helps the audience see that

John Cage is a controversial composer. Some may say he revolutionized music composition and changed music history of the 20th century, yet others do not even acknowledge his compositional contributions as music. I believe John Cage was a brilliant artist, and his works push the boundaries of both sound and music to create a genre of his own by using the elements of silence and chance. Through his compositional development, one can track his changing music philosophy as it grew from a limited notion of silence, to the enjoyment of the element of chance, to a redefined meaning of silence that reaches beyond the grasp of most innovators still today.

John Cage?s music was revolutionary. The music that he wrote or preferably invented was not always melodies or harmonies, in fact Cage pushed the boundaries of traditional music by eliminating harmony in a lot of his Sonata?s. The Sonata personifies his interest in the rhythm of the piece then in harmony. This was one of the first revolutionary concepts. Cage had quickly discovered that ?harmony was inhospitable to nonpitched sounds?(Page 86, 20/20).

Imagine incessant unmelodious screaming accompanied by a tiny orchestra that seems to be playing out of tune. The sounds emitted by the performers, are, in a word, hideous. One cannot possibly stand five whole minutes of hearing a half-screaming banshee belch out what seems to be random notes. This cacophony is exactly what most of the audience at Schoenberg's Pierrot lunaire heard. Random, nonsensical clamor. In fact, the clamor is what most audiences heard at any number of performances of Schoenberg's work. Although Schoenberg’s musical compositions are excellent examples of contemporary art music within the music world, the audience thought differently, meeting the music with outcry and laughter, which ultimately led to Schoenberg’s exile from the world of music.

John Cage’s outlook on silence is fascinating. He believes that there never is true silence. There is always a sound, even if it is your own blood rushing or your heart beating. The world is full of sounds. In Cage’s piece, 4’33”, he instructs the performers to perform the three movements of the piece without their instruments. Cage created this piece to show the individuals in the audience that there is not true thing as silence. Although many may believe that the action of the players maybe sitting on stage, not playing their instruments is silence. The music, in Cage’s opinion becomes the sounds of the chair squeaking, the programs rustling, the coughing and sneezing. There is never true silence.

At first glance, Wassily Kandinsky’s artwork may simply be perceived as undulating explosions of color and form; however, the whirlwind of unrecognizable shapes and lines fading into one another draw the viewer in. This mysterious familiarity is the foundation of Kandinsky’s art; each element in the composition contributes to a symphonic harmony that exists between each form, line, and plane of color. The recognition of this harmony helps one gain a better understanding of the hidden spiritual concepts that Kandinsky strove to liberate through the application of his avant-garde techniques. His use of abstraction allows the relationships between color, form, line, and composition to thrive; their independence from the confines of traditional

To best vicariously appreciate Mimmo Paladino’s evocative installation Dormienti (Sleepers), poke around the internet and find composer Brian Eno’s electronic score of the same title. At Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park, this trance-inducing music plays on a loop in a large, dark gallery space, creating a moody and surreal soundscape for Paladino’s ambitious installation, in which 32 life-sized abstracted terracotta human forms rest in the fetal position. It’s as if their inert earthen bodies have yet to experience the spark of life. Although unmistakably contemporary, this collaborative work seems timeless and universal, as do many of Paladino’s other sculptures on view. Even Eno’s electronic music, for all its technological modernity, seems evocative of free-rhythm Gregorian chant.

In this article the author talks a lot about the soundscape of sound. The soundscape would include listen to instruction, the sound of a good hit, noise as a system of social organization, the role of music, hearing the audience, fight song, listen in a fight, and last would be hearing defeat or victory. Listen to

As a composer, he makes no effort to conform to the traditional standards of excellence that have been attached to music for its entire existence. In fact, using a classical frame of reference, the piece technically doesn’t even exist. For most of Modern Art, there is at least a mutual understanding that a given work lies within the confines of the medium, regardless of how much artistic controversy it packs. Essentially, a painting by Pablo Picasso, no matter how radical, is at least agreed by everyone (critic or proponent) to be, in its most basic form, a painting. However, with “3’44”, John Cage challenges the very idea that art needs to have some sort of tangible content. It presents the radical thought to the audience that a musical piece without any sound, which is viewed as the most fundamental element of music, can still be viewed as an artistic work with a substantial meaning. It pushes the listener past the point of comfort and familiarity in the most extreme sense, forcing him or her to reevaluate everything that is thought to be accepted about

As one of the most radical composers in the 20th century, John Cage introduced new ideas of what music is. Breaking away from the traditional idea that music stems solely from the musician’s preconceived and structured arrangement of sounds from specific instruments, Cage’s philosophy of music is based on the idea that all sounds can work cooperatively to create music, including those from the environment. Strongly influenced by the principles in Zen Buddhism and Indian music, Cage began to explore new medians for music; He incorporated different elements by relying heavily on chance and randomness. Cage worked hard to create pieces that detached himself, as the composer, far away from the piece itself as possible- to allow the listener

With a vast exposure to music in our everyday lives, we must give thought as to what makes the sounds we hear so impressionable upon our very being in an order to understand music. Peter Kivy discusses two models in his book, “Music Alone; Philosophical Reflections on the Purely Musical Experience”, accounting for musical appreciation, namely, the stimulation model and the representational model of musical pleasure. Kivy compares these two models of conceptualization on many different accounts. We learn, through his defense, that he takes the stance as to say that music is purely a cognitive experience because of the syntactic structure that music is developed upon and our understanding of the structure’s function. He debunks the idea that a purely musical experience can be defined by the stimulation model because that would digress all music into a casual-mechanism of nerve arousal.