John Cage "4'33"

lordgoat

So what do people think of this? Is it music? What is it?
I have nothing to say and i am saying it

A load of ol' bollocks or a piece of genius.

Here's the version with an orchestra.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUJagb7hL0E

mike65

Version with orchestra! I like a good piss take.

Its a clever gimmick - silence is its own reward and absence is a sort of presence so you can say the piece has merit.

But Cage was really just chancing his arm or he was very up his own arse.

Mike.

johnny_ultimate

I was 'shown' this by a friend a few weeks ago and I absolutely despise it. I feel it is pretentious and unecessary.

It's a gimmick, perhaps faintly amusing on youtube. But if someone played it at a concert Id be royally pissed off :mad:

Sinfonia

lordgoat wrote:

A load of ol' bollocks or a piece of genius.

It's just art, and the same question could be asked for any piece of art or music, really. The point of the piece is the concept, as far as I see it. It's an interesting concept, and to be fair, I'd rather listen to 4'33" than a lot of other pieces of music:p .

John

Genious. Not because it's "OMG teh man on stage is playing nothing" but because at the time it forced many composers and musicians to realise that not all music was happening on the stage, that all sound in the right context is music. So in the case of a concert hall, the sounds of people coughing, clearing their throats, the traffic outside, etc. become the music. Of course you may see this as pretentious (and I freely admit it is) but pretension isn't always a bad thing. It takes some neck to go out and deliberately not play something to an audience. Most importantly, like all great art, it provokes a reaction in the audience.

There are a couple of books out there which go through the ideas behind the piece, the best in my opinion being Conversations with Cage.

Definitely one of the most important men in music. Most of his pieces may not be listenable but his ideas in different musical contexts have had huge resonance (pun intended) since he started composing.

lordgoat

John wrote:

Genious. Not because it's "OMG teh man on stage is playing nothing" but because at the time it forced many composers and musicians to realise that not all music was happening on the stage, that all sound in the right context is music. So in the case of a concert hall, the sounds of people coughing, clearing their throats, the traffic outside, etc. become the music. Of course you may see this as pretentious (and I freely admit it is) but pretension isn't always a bad thing. It takes some neck to go out and deliberately not play something to an audience. Most importantly, like all great art, it provokes a reaction in the audience.

There are a couple of books out there which go through the ideas behind the piece, the best in my opinion being Conversations with Cage.

Definitely one of the most important men in music. Most of his pieces may not be listenable but his ideas in different musical contexts have had huge resonance (pun intended) since he started composing.

I can see alot of what you're saying but another part of me is unconvinced. I def agree with Cage having alot of balls/arrogance to actually play nothing. But i can never imagine anyone saying "You know what? stick on 4 33 there i haven't heard it in ages" It will always be talked about more than listened to and that for me is not what music is about. Of course you can see the originality and quirkiness that you'd never hear the same performance from the same listen twice but again i'm not sure if this is a good thing. Good points well made though.

Sinfonia

I remember reading a quote from John Cage where he spoke about conducting many performances of 4'33" in the woods and other places (sorry I can't remember exactly what it was), which I thought was a nice idea.

John

lordgoat wrote:

ut i can never imagine anyone saying "You know what? stick on 4 33 there i haven't heard it in ages" It will always be talked about more than listened to and that for me is not what music is about.

Well I don't think it's something you can just stick on, it's definitely a performance piece (although many, many recordings exist). The whole point of Cage's work is a celebration of the random and unique, recordings of many of his works kind of go against the spirit of the pieces.

John

Actually, I just watched that video for the first time there, it's hilarious that everyone is afraid to cough during it, when the first movement ends and everyone coughs is brilliant!

grumpytrousers

John wrote:

It's definitely a performance piece

You're so right; i do a mean rendition of it using just kazoo and bagpipes

John

Heheh, I don't think your kazoo silence is a match for my teacup and six library book version.

BaZmO*

Pure Genius! In fact, it's one of the first compositions that I learned to play on my imaginary piano. Granted it took me a while to master it, but with sheer hard work, determination and practice I was finally able to perform this masterpiece.

Anyway, pure pretentious nonsense. It just goes to show how gullible some "arty" types are. Emperor's new clothes if you ask me. I'm all for art being challenging and for it to go against the grain, it's actually what makes art great but sometimes you need to stand up and say "Get the Fúck!!!"

I suppose the only good thing about this "performance" is that you don't need a top of the range Bang & Olufsen speaker system to appreciate it's genius. :rolleyes:

grumpytrousers

John wrote:

Heheh, I don't think your kazoo silence is a match for my teacup and six library book version.

The Vienna Boys Choir and Nine Inch Nails collaborated on a great version ,with a guest spot from, if i'm not mistaken, the late great George Melly on it. It's wonderful, and i suggest (at the risk of being banned) that you fire up your filesharing programs to track it down...

cornbb

Its not music in the normal sense, granted, but it is art in one of its purest forms - totally original, creative, and a bit shocking.

Cage's idea was to force people to listen to the mundane almost inaudible sounds that surround us every day. The composition was inspired by "white" paintings that showed that even white paint on canvas has its own lighting and texture and is unique depending on the angle you view it from. He drew the parallel between this and its aural equivalent.

It originally struck me as pretentious too, but when the idea behind it was explained to me I thought it was pretty cool. It has huge, huge quantities of artistic and creative merit, much more so than the vast majority of music that has been written in the meantime.

Setun

johnny_ultimate wrote:

I was 'shown' this by a friend a few weeks ago and I absolutely despise it. I feel it is pretentious and unecessary.

It's a gimmick, perhaps faintly amusing on youtube. But if someone played it at a concert Id be royally pissed off :mad:

You loved it really

I think it's a great piece. It's not necessarily music fair enough, but for me it's Cage conveying his idea in a fairly extreme manner in order to force people to think about the sounds they hear around them. I think that the piece definitely serves it's purpose in that regard.

mike65

grumpytrousers wrote:

The Vienna Boys Choir and Nine Inch Nails collaborated on a great version ,with a guest spot from, if i'm not mistaken, the late great George Melly on it. It's wonderful, and i suggest (at the risk of being banned) that you fire up your filesharing programs to track it down...

I doubt it beats the version which featured a Dave Lee Roth & Montserrat Caballe duet backed by Paddy 'pay and play' Moloney.

Mike.

cornbb

mike65 wrote:

I doubt it beats the version which featured a Dave Lee Roth & Montserrat Caballe duet backed by Paddy 'pay and play' Moloney.

Mike.

I'm playing it right now, with the cup of coffee on my desk.

BaZmO*

cornbb wrote:

Its not music in the normal sense

It's not music in any sense.

But how can it be this....

cornbb wrote:

but it is art in one of its purest forms - totally original, creative, and a bit shocking.

if it was just inspired by "white" paintings?

It's just derivative pretentious nonsense. As an artistic concept it had already been done. But then again art is in the eye, or in this case the ear of the beholder.

cornbb

BaZmO* wrote:

It's not music in any sense.

Music by many people's definition, in the very broadest sense, is simply organised sound. Just because you won't hear something on the radio, or because it doesn't contain the familiar scales and rhythms we hear every day, doesn't make it not music. But this piece pushes the boundaries of even these definitions, I'll grant you that.

But how can it be this....

if it was just inspired by "white" paintings?

It was inspired by the paintings, it uses a completely different medium (i.e. sound).

It may not have toe-tapping value, but it has tons of artistic value, thats the point here.

For a bit of perspective, here is one of my favourite Cage pieces. Again its not a toe-tapper, but if you consider it was composed in 1939 its a pretty groundbreaking work, from the point of view of exploring new sounds, and in the way technology was used to create such music. Think of it as the aural equivalent of a Salvador Dali painting

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVN_mxVntXk

mike65

The theremin was already old hat by 1939, sounds like an out-take from Forbidden Planet.

Mike.

cornbb

mike65 wrote:

The theremin was already old hat by 1939, sounds like an out-take from Forbidden Planet.

Mike.

No one else was using turntables/vinyl in performances back then though

grumpytrousers

cornbb wrote:

Music by many people's definition, in the very broadest sense, is simply organised sound.

If i'm misquoting or misunderstanding you, i'm sorry...but isn't the point of 4 33 that none of the sound is organised at all. I mean, say you were to sit down in the national concert hall and have it 'performed' for you, the 'performance' is 4 minutes and 33 seconds of an orchestra doing bog all PLUS the chair of the person next to you squeaking, and the person behind you wheezing, the occasional sniff of the bunged up soul in the back row, etc?

And if the orchestra were to do a second 'performance' the rendition you would hear, or a bootleg recorder would get (:D) would be completely different.

Thus there's no organisation of sound, per se, it's completely random and as such not, by any stretch of the imagination music. Art yes. Music no?

BaZmO*

cornbb wrote:

Music by many people's definition, in the very broadest sense, is simply organised sound. Just because you won't hear something on the radio, or because it doesn't contain the familiar scales and rhythms we hear every day, doesn't make it not music. But this piece pushes the boundaries of even these definitions, I'll grant you that.

According to Merriam-Webster "Music" is defined as...

1 a : the science or art of ordering tones or sounds in succession, in combination, and in temporal relationships to produce a composition having unity and continuity b : vocal, instrumental, or mechanical sounds having rhythm, melody, or harmony
2 a : an agreeable sound : EUPHONY <her voice was music to my ears> b : musical quality <the music of verse>
3 : a musical accompaniment <a play set to music>
4 : the score of a musical composition set down on paper
5 : a distinctive type or category of music <there is a music for everybody -- Eric Salzman>

Which proves that "4'33" is my no means in any way shape or form a musical piece. But in fairness, I don't think the notion of it being a musical piece was ever up for debate. What is up for debate is the artistic merit of the "performance" and as I've stated already, I feel that the piece is just a copy of an artistic idea/concept that has already been done before in the form of pieces like "white" paintings.

You say that it was "inspired by the paintings" and that "it uses a completely different medium (i.e. sound)" but does that not just prove that it's not exactly groundbreaking or original, in fact it was just a tired and lazy natural progression from the visual art to aural art, i.e sound.


On a different point, wasn't there some legal issues regarding the copyright of this piece or something similar? I remember seeing something on the news around the time of this "performance"

cornbb

grumpytrousers wrote:

Thus there's no organisation of sound, per se, it's completely random and as such not, by any stretch of the imagination music. Art yes. Music no?

Its organised in the sense that the lack of sound is intentional. There is a score, but there are no notes written on it. This is a stretch of the imagination, but everything about 4'33" is I suppose.

BaZmO* wrote:

According to Merriam-Webster "Music" is defined as...

Quote:
1 a : the science or art of ordering tones or sounds in succession, in combination, and in temporal relationships to produce a composition having unity and continuity b : vocal, instrumental, or mechanical sounds having rhythm, melody, or harmony
2 a : an agreeable sound : EUPHONY <her voice was music to my ears> b : musical quality <the music of verse>
3 : a musical accompaniment <a play set to music>
4 : the score of a musical composition set down on paper
5 : a distinctive type or category of music <there is a music for everybody -- Eric Salzman>
Which proves that "4'33" is my no means in any way shape or form a musical piece. But in fairness, I don't think the notion of it being a musical piece was ever up for debate.

And the wikipedia entry for Music says:

Music is an art, entertainment, or other human activity that involves organized and audible sound, though definitions may vary.

So the definition of music is certainly up for debate.

What is up for debate is the artistic merit of the "performance" and as I've stated already, I feel that the piece is just a copy of an artistic idea/concept that has already been done before in the form of pieces like "white" paintings.

You say that it was "inspired by the paintings" and that "it uses a completely different medium (i.e. sound)" but does that not just prove that it's not exactly groundbreaking or original, in fact it was just a tired and lazy natural progression from the visual art to aural art, i.e sound.

Its not just that though, it explores a different idea. Cage spent some time in an anechoic chamber (a soundproof room that has no echoes/reverberations), thought he would hear complete silence but heard the beating of his heart and the high pitched buzz caused by his central nervous system. He set out to make the listener notice the ambient sounds that always surround us. If you think 4'33" is a ripoff, or derivative in any sense, think of it in the context of the masses of music you hear every day. There has never been anything like it. Its likely that your favourite artist/band's latest album contains chords, scales, rhythms, instruments, and verse-chorus-verse structures that have been done literally millions of times before. I'm not slagging them off, I'm just saying that everything is derived from something.

4'33" is about as artsy-fartsy and pretentious as you can get, I'll grant you that. But people have been discussing it for 50 years (not just slagging it off, either), I think it has merit alright.

grumpytrousers

I'll stand with you shoulder to shoulder on the art front. I'll back you to the hilt on the idea Cage was trying to express of ambient noise and so forth. I'll be the first to defend the notion that as an expression of 'something to make one think' it's definitely doing its job.

But i'm sorry; you're wrong on the music front . And please, don't say that just 'cos the wikipedia definition doesn't tie in with your opinion that the 'definition is certainly up for debate'.

put it like this; if I urinate in a bucket, is that music? And just cos I publish a 'score' for this, doesn't make it any more 'musical'. If what you say of the 'score' for 4 33 exists, then are all stores that sell blank manuscript books breaching copyright? (Mods, move to Legal issues if you like!)

You can't just equate the result of an activity that stimulates (or fails to!) the nerve endings in the ear with being music, any more than you could call the result of a head on collision between two cars, which stimilates the nerve endings in the eyes, a sculpture...

BaZmO*

cornbb wrote:

And the wikipedia entry for Music says:

Ah c'mon! You should know the rules by now, if you use wiki to prove your point you lose!

cornbb wrote:

If you think 4'33" is a ripoff, or derivative in any sense, think of it in the context of the masses of music you hear every day. There has never been anything like it. Its likely that your favourite artist/band's latest album contains chords, scales, rhythms, instruments, and verse-chorus-verse structures that have been done literally millions of times before. I'm not slagging them off, I'm just saying that everything is derived from something.

4'33" is about as artsy-fartsy and pretentious as you can get, I'll grant you that. But people have been discussing it for 50 years (not just slagging it off, either), I think it has merit alright.

I don't think I ever said that it was a ripoff, I just said that it wasn't original and groundbreaking as you were making it out to be.

I'm with grumpytrousers on this one. I'm all for art and for the notion that art should make you think outside the box and challenge ideas and notions that are considered the norm, that's a healthy thing. But it also needs to be honest in what it's trying to achieve and I don't think that in this case "4'33" is being that honest if it's calling itself a musical piece, but having said that I don't think it is. It's an artistic performance not a musical performance.

cornbb

grumpytrousers wrote:

But i'm sorry; you're wrong on the music front . And please, don't say that just 'cos the wikipedia definition doesn't tie in with your opinion that the 'definition is certainly up for debate'.

But if its not up for debate what is the definition of music then? No dictionary or musicologist in the world will agree on that. Have a look here and see how little consensus there is. Here are some of the non-bullshít definitions:

# an artistic form of auditory communication incorporating instrumental or vocal tones in a structured and continuous manner
# any agreeable (pleasing and harmonious) sounds; "he fell asleep to the music of the wind chimes"
# musical activity (singing or whistling etc.); "his music was his central interest"
# (music) the sounds produced by singers or musical instruments (or reproductions of such sounds)

# Music is an art, entertainment, or other human activity that involves organized and audible sound, though definitions may vary.

# organised sound
www.waikato.ac.nz/film/handbook/glossary.html

# The organization of sounds with some degree of rhythm, melody, and harmony.

# Music has been defined as generally as "organized sound" and specifically so as to require an entire book to define. A general definition may best be defined as "sounds and pitches organized in time to create a chosen artistic or aestetic statement." Music is both an art and a craft, based on acoustic principles, yet subject to various interpretations, hence its artistic merit. Because of this, we study the craft so that we might better appreciate the art expressed in music.

# Organized sound; the written-down representation of those sounds.

# THEMATIC MELODY - MUSIC THAT IS ESTABLISHED AND THEN REPRISED IN VARIATIONS.

# The only sensual pleasure without vice. [Samuel Johnson]

# Music is the diarrhea of the intellect.

# Broadly speaking, sounds organized to express a wide variety of human emotions.

I'll stand by my assertion that 4'33" can be music, depending on the definition, and it is music according to several of those definitions. Of course it is not music according to others. Its all about how people interpret it I suppose.

BaZmO*

cornbb wrote:

I'll stand by my assertion that 4'33" can be music, depending on the definition

But that's like saying a car can be a boat, depending on the definition.

cornbb

BaZmO* wrote:

I'm with grumpytrousers on this one. I'm all for art and for the notion that art should make you think outside the box and challenge ideas and notions that are considered the norm, that's a healthy thing. But it also needs to be honest in what it's trying to achieve and I don't think that in this case "4'33" is being that honest if it's calling itself a musical piece, but having said that I don't think it is. It's an artistic performance not a musical performance.

Fair nuff, you're entitled to your own personal interpretation of music. Cage was a loony artist, I think he was a genius (not because of 4'33" though). He himself certainly thought of it as music. Let him, I say.

cornbb

BaZmO* wrote:

But that's like saying a car can be a boat, depending on the definition.

There is no possible definition of boat loose/broad enough to allow someone to describe a car as a boat. There are widely accepted definitions of music loose/broad enough to describe 4'33" as music.

BaZmO*

cornbb wrote:

Fair nuff, you're entitled to your own personal interpretation of music. Cage was a loony artist, I think he was a genius (not because of 4'33" though). He himself certainly thought of it as music. Let him, I say.

Indeed.

cornbb wrote:

There are widely accepted definitions of music loose/broad enough to describe 4'33" as music.

I really don't think there are. I think that you would find that the general consensus as to what does and what doesn't constitute as music would certainly not agree that 4'33 is music. I'll say it again, it's performance art with a musical theme and not music.