My music teacher was telling us about this piece called 4’33. It was composed by John Cage, a man known for putting unexpected “noise” into his work. When it was premiered it was played by David Tudor on August 29, 1952. Tudor was known for championing experimental music. Surely these two would creat something new and unexpeted.
So on the night of the performance Tudor comes out to the piano with his stopwatch to time his piece (which apparently wasnt uncommon) and he closes the lid of the piano to mark the beginning of the piece. A few minutes later he opened the lid briefly to mark the end of the first movement. There were three movements. The entire piece consisted of the pianist going to the piano and not hitting any keys for three movements.
My initial reaction when I heard this was “That sounds really boring.” But after I thought about it more… I think its a really neat idea. The comotion around you becomes the music. The sound of cars outside. The sound of someone adjusting in their seat. The sound a bird flying by. Anything. Anything can be the music, which I find pretty amazing
However, what I found interesting abut 4’33 is that even though the pianist isn’t making any sound, there’s still noise. Wouldn’t you expect it to be quiet, or maybe even silent? But its not quiet, theres clocks ticking, and people coughing, and the hum of the AC. There’s always some kind of noise… there never really is silence.
I dont really think Cage was trying to achieve silence, he wanted the ambient noises to become the music, which they did. But latley I’ve been thinking about how loud everything is. Even my voice seems louder to me than normal, and how nice it would be to sit in silence for a little bit. To not have anything running through my head but quietness. But I can’t manage to get that to happen. There’s always noise, always something to listen to and when we dont have anything to listen to we turn on music or the tv or start singing to fill in the silience.
We fill every moment of our lives with music or noise or sounds of some sort that in a typical day finding one moment of complete and absolute silence is inconceivable. Its impossible.
Why is silence so foreign? Why is it such a strange concept? Why can’t I find it? And why am I searching for it?
The voice in my head gets louder and louder and I just want it to be quiet… but when it finally does the silence is even louder than my voice. Silence screams compared to the whispers of other noises
How is that possible? Why is it the quiet moments are the loudest? Why does an awkward silence stand out more than music playing in the background. How can jack hammers and cars honking be considered music when we cant even stand to listen to silence for a couple moments?
So I’m asking this:
Why is silence so loud yet so hard to find?
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