John Cage - 4'33''

[Albert Tatlock]

This years' anti X-Factor campaign.

The weekly Radio 1 Top 40 run down would have to play it ... Interesting.

Of course, I would prefer it on vinyl compared to that lossy mp3 version

 

Guardian piece

 

Cage Against the Machine – enjoy the silence

John Cage's heightened soundscape of quietness is the perfect response to Simon Cowell and The X Factor this Christmas

Tom Service guardian.co.uk, Friday 5 November 2010

 

It's a brilliant bit of wordplay, for a start. Cage Against the Machine is the campaign to put John Cage's infamous silent piece, 4'33'', on top of the Christmas charts – and to consign whatever X-Factor effort Simon Cowell chooses to unleash on an unsuspecting public to mid-chart mediocrity. Based on last year's successful bid to make Rage Against the Machine king of the Crimbo hit-parade, this year's Cage campaign already has nearly 50,000 people signed up to it on Facebook, with all proceeds going to charity when the single becomes available on 13 December.

 

It's self-evidently a good thing, but there's much more to CATM than the statistics. 4'33'' has a unique capacity to offend, to shock, and to entertain, nearly six decades after its premiere at the Maverick Concert Hall at Bard College in August 1952, when pianist David Tudor sat down at the piano to play – well, not a single note. 4'33'' is also one of the very few pieces in history that has crossed from the avant-garde to the mainstream. When the BBC Symphony Orchestra performed it the Barbican in London in 2004, the Sun carried the story, and just as many listeners were outraged as were thrilled by 4'33'''s three movements of silence.

 

The CATM campaigners want 4'33" to win the Christmas poll to "make it a silent night on Radio 1". They're closer to Cage's original intentions than some of them might know. According to Kyle Gann's recent book on 4'33", Cage may have conceived the idea of his silent piece as a reaction to a postwar urban America and its near-constant soundtrack of muzak. A few months before the premiere of 4'33'', Cage cut out an article from the New York Post, which imagines a jukebox with silent singles, giving people the chance to escape the tyranny of continual aural bombardment. If the idea of a temporary respite from noise pollution was a good idea in 1952, it's even more necessary now.

 

But as Gann's book shows, there's, "no such thing as silence", even when you're talking about 4'33''. Think about the two minutes' silence on 11 November: what you hear is never "nothing", but a heightened soundscape of quietness that you never normally notice: the shuffling and breathing of your fellow human beings if you're in a crowd, or the sonic landscape of the city that you don't normally notice.

 

The essential non-silence of "silence" is especially true for one of the people putting together the new version of 4'33" that will be released in time for Christmas. DJ Eddy Temple-Morris suffers from tinnitus (the British Tinnitus Association is on the charities that will benefit from sales of the track), and the final track looks like it will be a remix of ambient sounds and background noise.

 

That's fine, and in the spirit of Cage's ideas, but I hope it doesn't end up being too loud. The poetry of trumping Cowell et al with no intentional sounds requires the track to be as quiet as possible to make Cage's victory complete. 4'33'' has long been the avant-gardistas No 1, but perhaps it can now become the people's favourite too. Imagine next year's X Factor auditions, as contestant after contestant announces that they won't be singing Lady Gaga or Madonna, but 4'33''. ITV forced to broadcast hour after hour of silence as Cowell and co look on in bemusement, and have to give everyone three yesses for their impeccable renditions of one of the great masterpieces of 20th century music. Remember: 4'33" is not just for Christmas ...

[remphish1]

I love this song this song..the middle is my favorite part!

 

I want make a remix of this track...maybe I can call it 4'34"?

[Oil Can Boyd]

I saw the Magnetic Fields play it once. It was the end of the two-night show playing all of 69 Love Songs. People were clapping for an encore and the band came out to the front of the stage, one of them started the timer on their watch, and they just stood there.

 

It actually got an interesting reaction. Most people watched quietly, there was a lot of nervous laughter, and one guy started screaming at them. He went right up towards the stage and started shouting "this is lame, play something!"

[Albert Tatlock]

"this is lame, play something!"

I have to say, I hate those jam bands that stretch it out to 7'56' or so with needless noodling.

[LouieB]

I saw the Magnetic Fields play it once. It was the end of the two-night show playing all of 69 Love Songs. People were clapping for an encore and the band came out to the front of the stage, one of them started the timer on their watch, and they just stood there.

 

It actually got an interesting reaction. Most people watched quietly, there was a lot of nervous laughter, and one guy started screaming at them. He went right up towards the stage and started shouting "this is lame, play something!"

Did they actually announce that they were "performing" the piece or did they just leave the audiance wondering?? Performing this piece is a pretty cool thinhg if you at least give the audience a slight heads up by sitting in front of your intruments, etc. The ambiant noise is what the piece is about including the audiences reaction.

 

A few months back there was a great article in the New Yorker about John Cage. I can't remember why this was, maybe there is a new bio out or something.

 

LoueiB

[Oil Can Boyd]

Did they actually announce that they were "performing" the piece or did they just leave the audiance wondering?? Performing this piece is a pretty cool thinhg if you at least give the audience a slight heads up by sitting in front of your intruments, etc. The ambiant noise is what the piece is about including the audiences reaction.

 

A few months back there was a great article in the New Yorker about John Cage. I can't remember why this was, maybe there is a new bio out or something.

 

LoueiB

My recollection is that they did make it clear what they were doing, and I totally agree that the audience response is the main part of what makes it interesting.

 

I liked that New Yorker article, as well. I didn't know much about Cage.

[Moss]

I like to give it a nice big 70's ending and stretch it to 4'38.

[Sir Stewart]

Yeah, the New Yorker piece was great. I never thought much about him before reading that, but he was something. How about the mushroom expertise that he parlayed into a successful run on that game show?

[LouieB]

I was fortunate enough to see John Cage give a talk at Northwestern many years ago. He as very engaging and interesting. I have a second version of music for prepared piano I have never played..guess I need to dig that out.

 

As long as MF more or less told the audiance what it was doing then the reaction certainly part of the peice. Fun idea.

 

LouieB

[Albert Tatlock]

Would have been a good one to have requested for a Living Room show. Then all the musically challenged present (like myself) could have claimed to have accompanied JT on a song :-) Would haev been pretty easy for him to learn too.